Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-05-08
THE BUSINESS MAN.
Some Of the Things That He Will
Not Do if He Be q Christian.
BEING GOOD DURING THE WEEK.
How Material Interests Clash With the
Rules Of Right Living.
CONCRETE EXAMPLES IN PITTsBURG
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH,


church. Church going is a fair thermome-
ter of religion; it is an indication of spirit
ual heat and cold. Yet it is by no means an
infallible thermometer. "a man may
smile and smile and be william, "
and a man may pray and pray, or
at least appear to pray, and be anything
but Christian. Christianity is not proved
by church attendance.
Even church membership may or may not
be an indication Of Christianity. I hold,
indeed, that every good man and good
woman ought to be member of the Chris
tian Church. There is something 1ncongru-
GUS in the attitude of any honest man or
woman who desires to know the highest
truth and aspires to live the highest life,
and yet stands outside the Christian organ
ization. They ought to join the church for
their own sake, to get good; and for the sake
of others, to do good. And yet know some
most excellent Christians who are not m en-
bers of the church; and I am informed by
business men that the fact of church men,
bership is not by any means guarantee in
the business world of commercial integrity;
which means that man may be a member
of the church, and yet not be a Christian.
An Estimate of Heresy.
And that which is true of church attend
ance and church membership is equally
true of church orthodoxy. John Wesley
said in his strong way, that a man may be
as orthodox as the devil himself, and as
wicked. Osr Lord drew distinction be-
tween two kinds of fblasphemy, one of which
may be forgiven, but the other never for
given. Blasphemy against the Son of Man,
he said, is capable of pardon, but blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost is not. What is the
difference? Blasphemy against the Son of
Man is theological heresy. Anybody who
heresy has centered about the person of
the Son of Man, about the doctrine of the
Trinity and of the incarnation. Christ says
that all that kind of heresy may be pardoned,
that man may be the worst kind of a the
illogical hereto and yet be Christian. But
the other kind is moral heresy.
Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is the
sin of the man who calls wrong right, and
right wrong, who calls darkness light and
light darkness, who goes against the voice
of his own conscience. And there is no for
giveness for the man who persists in that
position, Jesus says, either in this world or
in the next. The most pernicious of all
heresy is heresy against the law of righteous
ness No amount of theological orthodoxy
makes a man Christian.
Being Good Only on Sunday.
And so we can take those three items, of
church attendance and church membership
and church orthodoxy, and add them all to-
gether and yet not arrive at the definition of
a Christian. A man may go to church and
be a member of the church and profess to
believe all the doctrines of the church, and
do all those three things in an exceedingly
emphatic manner and yet be thoroughly
obnoxious to the Lord Jesus Christ and be
nothing but scribe or q pharisee. 1t is
six times more important to be good Chris
tian on week days than it is on Sunday. 1t
matters comparatively little what people
profess to believe with their lips in COM
parison with what they show that they ac-
tually believe in their lives. The test of
Christianity is the life But our lives
are not lived solitarily. We live in contact
with other people. Men, especially, live a
large part of their lives in close touch
with other men in the world of business. So
that for man it is pre-eminently essential
that he should be a Christian in his busi-
ness, and that is the subject of this sermon,
1.-THE Christian in Business"
1t is necessary to begin with certain ele-
mentary truths. One of them is that the
Christian will not lie. There is no room in
the Christian religion for a liar unless he is
a converted liar. A case came under my
observation only month ago that illus
trates this question.
Why a Young Man Didn't Join.
A young man was meditating church
membership and as he thought about the
matter and compared the ideal of Christian
discipleship with his own life there arose a
certain problem in his mind. This young
mans business, let us say. was putting on
lath in houses. He worked at this trade in
company with half dozen other mon and
their day ended at 5 o'clock in the after
noon. Sometimes the job was large and
sometimes it was small, so sometimes they
got through at 4 o'clock and sometimes they
got through at 8. And the custom was
among them. and is still, to say among
"Now we will report to the
contractor when We 60 back tomorrow
morning that we stopped work. not at 3
o'clock, as we did. but at 4:45, SO that we may
get whole days pay" And this alterna-
tive was brought up before the young mans
his position, should he incur unpopularitv
with his associates, or should he follow the
Lord Jesus Christ? And he had good re-
ligious sense enough to know that he could
not be Christian and tell lies at the same
time. He stayed out of the church. He
made the great refusal
What is it to tell lie? Lying is any
kind of meddling with the truth to our
neighbor's disadvantage. Misrepresentation
of the quality of goods is lying. Evasion OF
contracts is lying. Breaking agreements
that have not been written down on paper
is lying.
Mr.. Hodges on the Jury.
remember case that came up last fall
when 1 was sitting on the jury. A con-
tractor was building house, let us say in
Sewickley. for large firm in Pittsburg, and
it was discovered in the process of building
that there was an exceedingly difficult piece |
of work to be done in the foundation that |
had not been foreseen, and he went down, or |
sent down to this firm in Pittsburg and said: |
SIT is going to be expensive to do this
what shall be done?" And they returned |
the verbal answer that he was to go ahead. |
So he did, and then when he brought in his !
bill at the end, they refused to pay for the |
extra work because it was not in the con- |
tract, and he had to sue them in the court |
for it. The large and prosperous firm of
business men showed themselves in that |
transaction to be thieves and liars.
That brings me to second elementary
ruth, and that is that Christian will not |
steal. There is no room in the Christian
.eligion for thief, unless he is penitent
,hief That means stealing time as we'll as
money. That touches every clerk or work
nan who uses his employers time for his
,wn pleasure. The rule that the Christian
eligion lays down for service is the rule of
egarding every employer as if he were the
Lord Christ himself Every real Christian
erves after that fashion
Gambling Is simply Stealing.
What is it to steal? Stealing is any kind
Il process by which man gets something
or nothing. Gambling is stealing
s one of the meanest kinds of stealing. 1t
tho faGipnr nf II L