Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1891-02-17
oHnIsFIAN BUSINESS MEN.

CHRISTIAN BUSINESS MEN.
Meeting Of tho Congregational Club
Last Evening -Responsibility of |
Business Mon In Christian Work |
: Discussed.
The February meeting Of the Fair Ha-
ven Congregational club, held last even
ing, was one of the most successful of the
winter. At half past six o'clock nearly
two hundred assembled in the parlors
the College street church for q collation.
and about an hour later the party adjourn
ed for the body Of the church where the
exercises were held.
The theme for the evenings discussion
was Business men in our churches and
their increasing responsibilities" The
following is a brief extract of the opening
paper read by Rev. Wolcott Calkins, D.
D., of Newton, Mass.
bring you a question, he said, rather
than any dogmatic statement of my own.
There have been times when apostles and
church fathers we're responsible for the
| quality of the Christian religion.
He deplored the society Of wage work
ers in the Congregational church and gave
the statistic to the effect that seventy-fve
per cent. of the influential men of the
| country are members or adherents of that
| denomination. These business men sub
stantially making up the body of the
church have to-day a responsibility to
make our Christianity ring through and
through with true Christianity.
He described the morbid estimate which
is clotted about business as moral pur-
suit and the habit many have of thinking
| ~, or OF ,,rofasaiop Somathincy
above temptation. Why don't you, he
said, create the same kind of an ideal about
| YOUR business vocation, and why not make
it Christian professions
There is a kingdom of heaven in the
profession of law, medicine and every
branch of business just as much as in the
pulpit.
The hum of machinery and all the thun-
derous harmony Of the worlds work is a
divine calling just as noble as the grand
melody of Mozart.
Failure is the rule in acquiring great
fortune, but wealth offers a dazzling
temptation.
Is not the strange infatuation of sudden
riches the bane of businesss It is some
thing which units the victim for steady
and definite business. I believe this
poisonous and degrading element may be
stamped out in single generation, and
this is one of the responsibilities which
rests upon the Christian business men
Business men ought to lock themselves uI
for time, if in no other way they car
keep themselves from the plutomania
Keep your boys away from all danger Of
this terrible insanity.
No man has any right to enter upon {
business career who is not thoroughly de
voted to it for itself.
You have brought business up to its
present high standard in the credit system
Why, now, don't you bring it up to tn,
same high degree in the Christian system
and clothe about it that high ideal which
you do about other professions.
Paying large endownments to universe
ties and brilliant gifts to charity will no
elevate business alone, to Christian
standard. I insist that business ought tt
be conducted SO as to become positlv
and aggressive force in Christian work.
Who can be a neighbor to these youn,
business men, to help them in this hour o
need? This is the field of Christian CHART,
work which belongs to the great body O
business men, above all.
| I say that it is time business men turn
over a new leaf in their Interpretation o
that well known phrase, Business is bust
ness" There is no clergyman or Christian
worker who can do so much good work o
! a noble Christian character as the bushes
man who has gone through his purgator
safely.
Business men to-day are still in worl,
permeated with heathenism, but befor
them is world of all the glorious realitie
, of the Christian ideal.
' After the interesting paper of DR.. Cal
kins followed discussion on the subject
, Mr.. r. P. Cowles arose and said he ha,
not the sighted fear that he was going t
%ln L.
too rich. He further said he believed tina
suit and reasonably succeed, but that j
was hard row to hoe. Business men ar
many times unjustly criticised. The honey
he said, in these days of sharp competi
, ton is not all on one side, and I think if
man supports himself and family, an
: when he dies leaves them comfortably Pre-
vided, has done very we'll.
9 Mr.. Seth Mosley was called upon, as
O man who could run a hotel successfully
He agreed with Mr.. Calkins that there wa
a tendency among business men to look u
9 with defiance to the professions, and be
t little the Importance of their own voca
! | tions. From the remarks of Mr.. Cowles
he said he thought hotel-keepers must b
more honest than the men engaged in othe
branches of business. [laughter]. H
! | thought his best Christian work had BEEF
in influencing his employees to save thei
money.
Lawyer Henry Newton said if bushes
, men would be content with profit equa
to the average mans yearly receipts Their
/ would not be SO many, if any, failures
But when they struggle and strive to enjo
the fruits of twenty or thirty other men
labor, why it is a pretty hard thing to fol
low close to the golden rule
, Professor Simeon E. Baldwin was Gale,
upon and arose as he said to say goo
word for his own profession. I don't thin
all lawyers are liars, he said, by an
means. He criticized as one evil existing
in business principles, of false labels
There is a temptation in the fevor of busi
} ness of doing something not quite So uare
Several others arose before the time O
J departing came, to express their views
some of contradictory nature to those al
} ready expressed, but all generally agreein
J that the subject was an important one.