The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1920-08-08
RELIGION AND COMMERCE.

| religion and commerce would yet come
70 be recognized as largely dependent
the one upon the other. He declared
that there had never yet been found
/ a better business rule than DO unto
| Others AS You Would Have Others
Do Unto YOU" and that the slogan,
Honesty is the Best Policy" might
be used by every business man as a
| guide.
/ That was years ago and this bust
ness man, long since 'Ioosed from his
burden of life" was far in advance of
his time. Not yet has it been ac-
copied that business and religion cam
not be divorced and succeed, but daily
that realization is being brought
home to many, and business, and par
! ticularly Big Business, is preaching
| the lesson.
1t may be argued that Big Business
| is using religion as a cloak But the
teaching of right, the incubation of
| the laws that govern right living. can
| never work out for anything but good,
wherever they may be used, or how
ever presented. Truth is unchange-
able and cannot be shaken or dis
guised.
Not long ago a prominent magazine
published an article calling attention
to the fact that people as a whole
were less selfish in their interests.
The writer declared that leading law
yers of the country declared that peo-
pie We're less eager to enter lawsuits
against others for property interests
than formerly, and that altogether
there seemed to be less inclination
to insist upon personal rights. The
xKyl-i faN~ 49,
religion" which followed in the wake
of the great war.
Some of the best sermons published
in the country find their place in the
pages of the Manufacturers Record
A recent editorial in the Record took
the ground that business papers, if
true to their responsibility, must dis
cuss the great moral and political is
sues of the hour, since all business de-
Ponds upon the movement OF politics
and all human affairs upon ethics and
religion, which teaches that all men,
employers and employees, buyers and
sellers. competitors for trade, pro-
ducers and consumers, If they would
follow the highest ethics, and do the
things that would lead to the greatest
happiness of all, must do unto others
as they would that others do unto
them.
Commenting on that editorial. the
Wall Street Journal said:
Not for the purpose of publishing
a complaint, or of explaining Wall
Street sermons published in these coll
umns, which were necessarily self
explanatory or nothing, is the follow
ing extract from the Manufacturers
Record quoted, but for the question it |
puts:
The Wall Street Journal has for /
some months been publishing on its /
first page remarkable series of SER
mons by laymen. in which it has been /
preaching with power not surpassed /
by that of the pulpit the fundamen-
tai truths of religion as they relate to
world business affairs. We wonder if
any of the readers of The Wall Street
Journal, like this one who objects to
our discussion of religious questions
as they affect business and world af-
fairs, has ever taken isue with The
Wall Street Journals wisdom in pub
fishing it's daily sermons -Manufac-
turers' Record.
Some readers OF The Wall Street
Journal, but no subscribers, took ex-
ception to the sermons presented in
what they considered an unsuitable
There are no more as
siduous readers of the paper than the
leading Socialist publications, espec-
tally those camouflaged under some
title with the word labor in it. These
did not take the ineligible ground
that Wall Street needed preaching, if
it were not indeed past praying for.
They worked up considerable indigna-
10 n 81 ted |
that labor, like capital, had duties as
well as right.
THE Manufacturers Record is in
error in assuming that these sermons
were published daily. This would
mean 500 of them in year; and it
may befdoubted if there is that much
sermon material which could be pre-
sented without repetition. The late
Dean Liddon, one Of the greatest
preachers in the Church of England,
once said that first-class man could
preach 20 sermons a year; a man of
earnestness and some intellectual en-
dowment might preach one a week,
while fool could preach any num-
ber
1.-THE sermons were presented, and
will be IN the future as prac
teal expression of the induhitable
fact that finance itself must be found
I'D upon the eternal verities if it is to ,
survive. This is why editorial discus ,
sion in these columns is catholic, in the
sense of univeral Not only is the ,
wheat market, for instance, interested
in the government crop report. 1t .
ought to understand the psychology of ,
the farmer and of his hired man, the !
effect of immigration laws or inflated
prices or wages upon the relations of !
farm capital to farm labor. ,
AS the farmers product has world ,
market. the effect of Bolshevist gov
eminent. not only on the wheat pro- !
iuction of the Ukraine. but upon the ,
Russian peasant proprietor and world :
workers generally. is every bit as i'm i
portant to the grain market as the ,
bare figure to which critics who feel :
themselves touched one the raw by /
The the lash of the preacher .rritably I
demand that we shoOd confine orr !
selves.
ssyVbeu Wa talk NJ a,,r arar4y