The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-11-27

for the ironclads? Who had the West
Point and Annapolis men trained FOR
business? Who appointed the represent
atives and executives? You and |.
And who now has just fumed little
and done nothing? You and !, Not be-
cause you and l as individuals are not
kind and fearless, but because we have
never got our corporate action, our cor
porate sentiment up to our private,
The day has gone by when one man
amounts to much by himself; 1t is men
together that do everything. What are
you going to do then if men together |
are not as good as men alone? What |
good are the tables of stone and the ser
mon on the mount, even if every man !
obeyed them, if all those men could get |
together and in the name of an aggre-
cation called nation or corporation,
disobey every word?
1t is Just the same nearer home, the
legislature helps steal the peoples prop
erty, the town steals the peoples money
and plunges us into all sorts of meta
rious business. And who is the legls-
lature and who is the town? 1T is you
and I. Dear people, how are you get
ting along running an open saloon on
Sunday? "We What do you mean?Y
Well, who is doing it? You are not
drawing the liquor any more than you
drive the nails when you build a house,
or fire an engine when you buy rail-
road stock, but you are the company
that is doing it.
The work before us is to bring our
public righteousness up to our private
More and more we are ceasing to act
alone, more and more we let our po-
: tentiality, be it brain power or muscle
power, or money power be merged in
the potentiality of the company, be 1T
: nation or syndicate for this way of do
: ing things proves itself more and more
profitable. More and more intense
: then every day grows the need that If
righteousness is to be at all 1t should
be public righteousness. The unit is
the company and it has a soul to be
saved.
, There are DOUBTLESS some mean, cruel
natures who rush into the corporate or
ganization because they see there the
opportunity to disregard Righteousness
as they could not alone. Many OF
D these public-private organizations are
professedly to evade the law, both civil
. and moral, but the nation is not such
an organization, the municipality IS not
y nor Is the syndicate trend of the times
: due to the opportunity for illegitimate
gain, but to theopportunityf for legitimate
| gain. The law of consolidation is mex
orable as gravitation and as righteous
: and religious In the same way. 1t is a
= fact 1t is no use to fight the course of
industrial and social growth, the grand
u | lor 90
9 kinglike, something even like the stat
T. ure Of Christ is to infuse Righteousness
Il into the industrial and social growth.
u but one or the other rlust answer to the
- Most High; you or Y sur dollars, you OF
y your nation, and in either case 1t is
= you The same law of right must pre-
: vail with railroad with its great null
tiple striving steel life that prevails
:. with sweet little girl growing up In a
= Christian home. The same law of fail
= dealing among nations as among boys
!, 1t is a big task. OF course, 1t IS
~ Should the work of an era be anything
less than big? 1t is big enough to be
- laid alongside of st. Paul and the Ref
!, ormation, and it ought to be 50 big. II
- is evident that the mere existence Of
= such an anomaly as an unrighteous ma
:, ton composed of righteous men, bull
lying corporation composed of gentle
y men would be enough to denoraliZe any
= race, but when you consider that i
= is no longer as individual men and in
= dividual gentlemen, but as nations ant
ie corporations that we act such an in
- consistency becomes PERFECTLY diabol
= ical.
w. In short, private goodness is com
- pletely nullified by public wrong doing
because we act a great deal more as ;
public, exert a far wider influence as
~ public than the sum of all our privat
- actions and influence. What do vol
rs suppose the influence of all the swee
- orderly lives lived in Great Britain
~ amounts to in China, besides the infiu
49, ence of the great, greedy diabolism o
: British opium trade forced upon hel
~ Our missionaries in many lands hay
eu long been telling us that the great oh
- stacle in their paths was not the pri
- waite lives of Christians, but the polit
~ ical and commercial deviltries Of Chris
"a, tian nations. I know surely from eS
~ perience, as does everyone Of you VIII
= has worked among all kinds of mel
- that the glaring inconsistencies that tn
- nom Christian man sees are not the pr
vate faults of a Christian man (for eN
cry honest man appreciates the strus
gle a man has with himself and is viii
- ing to make allowances for it,, but tt
- deliberate position of that man in put
w lie. An ultra moral excellence and e>
y enplary private life is no use, if
- man be also known and intrusted as
-" party. to a political deal or a membt
of a grinding corporation. A man WI
I'LL still exerts considerable influence as
ce' Christian in the bounds of his own in
IN mense store, because though he hin
ler self is always lovely, they know him {
at- the willingly blind proprietor of do
ne. Ell nnerciless men who do in his int
Oh est what he would not do himself
ate And we are all members of the matte
M and the town, makers and enforces
we laws and systems. There is no call
TO pick out a great railroad wrecker
ate robber syndicate and rave at thel
IN they are monstrosities and depart Lii
me antedeluvian animals before the a
sly proach of new and better ages, the CO
NM is just to redeem that public life poll
10 ical, commercial and social, of viii
Ian Ua al are o11tbprS and :,