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 Modern 
 
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 Business 
 
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 A LECTURE 
 
 BY 
 
 MR. GEORGE HAGUE, 
 
 General Manager of the Merchants Bank of Canada.! 
 
 

 .■X 
 
"Modern Business." 
 
 ' « W I 
 
 A LECTURE 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE MONTREAL YOUNG MEN's CHRISTIAN 
 
 ASSOCIATION, ON THURSDAY EVENING, 
 
 DECEMBER 19TH, 1878, 
 
 BY 
 
 MR. GEORGE HAGUE, 
 
 General Manager ok the Merchants Bank ok Canada. 
 
 -■• >»» I 
 
 inontreal : 
 D, Bentley & Co., Printers, 364 Notre Dame Street, 
 
 .879. ::■ ■■ ' ■■:-"•' 
 
 / 
 

 '-r^': 
 
 NOTICE 
 
 The following Lecture on "Modern Business "—one of a 
 Free Course— was delivered under the auspices of the Montreal 
 Young Men's Christian Association, on December 19th, 1878. 
 It was prepared amidst the pressure of business engagements, and 
 is not altogether what it might have been had more time been 
 available for the purpose. 
 
 It is, however, published at the request of many who heard 
 it, in the hope that the principles roughly laid down, and the 
 suggestions thrown out, may be a guide to young men amidst 
 the perils of modern business life. 
 
 
MoDEF\N Business. 
 
 •..••■ ■<:».-«! .-■■ ., ^^,^^ '• 
 
 In addressing the members and friends of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association on the subject of " Modern Business," I 
 desire to view it in the light which the Word of God, and 
 especially its latest manifestation in Christianity, enable us to 
 throw upon it. Let me say at the outset, that this is no narrow 
 or fanatical position for any man to take. A long experience of 
 affairs and books and men, convinces most persons that the 
 deepest philosophy of life, the shrewdest judgments of human 
 nature, and a knowledge absolutely perfect of all that is best to 
 understand, are to be gathered from the pages of that marvellous 
 collection, which, in its complete form, has long attained the 
 honorable title of "The Book"— "The Bible." Its principles 
 are, in themselves, a true touchstone. Properly applied, they 
 reveal the right and the wrong of almost everything. The false 
 and the true, the real, the unreal, the permanent and the 
 evanescent, are made to appear as certainly — often by a single 
 text— as, by the application of a single drop of acid, the genuine 
 silver is distinguished from the base nickel. 
 
 In expressing opiniorft, therefore, with regard to the charac- 
 teristics of modern business, I claim it to be a wise and intelligent 
 thing to follow the principles laid down in this old and long tried 
 volume. The wisdom of applying such a test as this may be 
 doubted or disputed. I can, however, say this : — that as years pass 
 by, and knowledge of the world widens, so do my ideas increase 
 of the value and reliability of this criterion. 
 
 I have to speak to-night on some of the characteristics of 
 Modern business, the phrase suggesting a distinction between 
 what is modern, and what is not modern. And here, not forgetting 
 that there was an age of great voyages and discoveries, and trade 
 
enterprises, and wonderful inventions, in a period long before the 
 present generation, I draw a sharp dividing line at a period not 
 far distant, and within the memory of many that are now before 
 me. There have been in operation for about a generation back, 
 various powers and activities, unknown from the time the world 
 began, which have added marvellously to man's command of the 
 great forces of Nature. By means of these, men have subdued 
 and brought under their control distant and formerly unknown 
 regions. Certain races of mankind, and particularly our own 
 British race, in its two fold form of European and American, 
 have been able to spread themselves of late over the surface of 
 the earth, with a celerity and success which had not been dreamed 
 of in former ages. The agents I refer to are the Railway, the 
 Steamboat, and the Electric Telegraph, to which may perhaps be 
 added the highly developed Machinery with which we are all now 
 so familiar. The Railway has quadrupled the rapidity of internal 
 communication, and increased its volume twenty-fold ; the Steam- 
 boat has done as much for ocean travel. Both, you will observe, 
 are marvellous economisers of lime, and time, we all know, is 
 money. Most potent of all, however, is the Telegraph, which 
 annihilates distance altogether, and brings the economy of time to 
 l^erfection, realizing Shakespeare's vision in *' The Tempest " of 
 " putting a girdle round the earth in forty min-tes." 'i'he period 
 antecedent to the discovery of these potent agencies, and 
 that which has succeeded it, differ in essential characteristics. 
 Their introduction marks a new era, not only in the history of 
 modern times, but, one may say, perhaps, without presumption, 
 of the very world itself. Before this era, indeed, there had been 
 unequalled displays of enterprise and courage on the part of 
 those who were carrying the business of the world on ; there had 
 been ambition and daring in the crossing of seas, and the taking 
 possession of countries for trade purposes, but the scale on which 
 this could be done was limited by the circumstances of the times. 
 Now, however, by the operation of these potent agencies, the 
 very world itself has become like one vast country. Many of 
 those who cany on modern busin iss make the whole world their 
 tributaries, — using this phrase, of course, in what may be called 
 
a " trade " sense. For the business of which I speak is not that 
 of conquering the world by force of arms, as Csesar did, nor of 
 administering the affairs of colonies and empires like the Indian 
 and Colonial OtHices of our own Motherland : it is neither military, 
 nor political, nor even professional business ; but it is that, first, 
 which takes its rise in the cultivation of the earth, above ground 
 or below, and whose results are the production of all things 
 capable of being grown or mined ; — next, that of adapting these 
 productions to the varied uses which man has found for them, by 
 divers processes of manufacture ; — finally, the business of carrying 
 the productions of one country to another, and distributing them 
 through a thousand channels to the people by whom they are 
 finally used. These, it will be observed, comprise the leading 
 divisions of human industry, — viz., Agriculture ; (to which may be 
 joined mining and lumbering), Manufactures ; and Commerce (in 
 which last we must include navigation, railways and telegraphs). 
 The question of production, you will observe, covers the first and 
 second of these — that is, two-thirds of the whole ground over 
 which business operations extend. For production must always 
 precede difTusion. Agriculture and Manufactures com:; bjforo 
 Commerce. We must possess before we can trade, — a t nth 
 which has a vital bearing upon the great question of Free Trade 
 or Protection, and which, if duly considered, might moiJifv, to 
 some extent, opinions that havb' been put forth respecting it. 
 In all these divisions of the wide field of business, our own 
 race has for many ages occupied the foremost place. The 
 Empire with which we are so proud to be identified, upon which 
 the sun never sets, has largely been created, and obtained its 
 present extraordinary dimensions, as the result of the business 
 instinct and trading faculty of our restless British community. 
 In this it differs from any Empire that ever existed. When 
 Napoleon called us a nation of shopkeepers, he was not so far 
 wrong as some have imagined. If he had called us a nation of 
 merchants and traders, and added that we were as ambitious, and 
 daring, and restless in these pursuits as he was in that of war, 
 he would have come near the exact truth. Consider the means 
 by which the British Empire has extended its boundaries so 
 
remarkably. India, an empire within itself, consisting of king- 
 doms upon kingdoms, with scores of millions of divers races and 
 populations, came under British rule entirely as the result of 
 trading enterprise on the part of a company of London merchants. 
 One of the most marvellous political phenomena of modern times 
 is the fact that this vast empire was actually ruled for more than 
 fifty years by these men of business. It was a trading company, 
 also, that explored and governed for more than a century the 
 enormous regions stretching from ocean to ocean to the north of 
 us, which we are just beginning to call our o»vn. During genera- 
 tion after generation, in these vast territories, comprising an area 
 as large as the whole of theUnited States, no rule, power, or authority 
 was known but that of the Hudson Bay Company. And let it be 
 said to the honor of these men of business, that their rule, in all 
 its leading features, was wise, honorable, and just ; and that their 
 methods of dealing with the Indian tribes which roamed over 
 their territory have been found of the greatest possible advantage 
 for Canada itself to follow. There is scarcely a favorable centre, 
 in fact, on any of the four continents that has not been occupied 
 for trading purposes by English-speaking people. Not to speak 
 of larger colonies and a Dominion like ours, we have in China 
 places like Hong-Kong and Shanghai ; in Japan, Yokohama ; in 
 the Eastern Archipelago, Singapore ; in Africa, the Mauritius, 
 Natal, and the Cape of Good Hope ; on this continent, the 
 West Indian Islands ; in the South Seas, Fiji — the last, and in 
 some respects one of the most interesting of our accjuisitions. 
 All these are occupied as centres of business by men of our own 
 race and language. In them all we find Banks, Newspapers, 
 Post Offices, Telegraphs, and all the appliances of modern civiliza- 
 tion, almost entirely conducted by Englishmen, and, of course, in 
 the English language. 
 
 A Russian, not long ago, was speaking to a Chinese gentle- 
 man who was about to visit the Paris Exhibition — (the conversation 
 
 Note. — I am aware that military and political genius has had more to do 
 of late with extending the boundaries of our Eastern Empire ; but trade was 
 at the foundation of it, ..- a •.; ••- ;;: 
 
f ■ 
 
 took place in China) — about the vast extent of the Kmpire of 
 Russia, as Russians are fond of doing, and by way of contrasting 
 it with that of England, pointed out the respective places occupied 
 by Russia and the British Islands on the Map of the World. 
 Our old island home, ^ve all know, makes a very sorry figure there. 
 " But," said the Chinese to my informant in Paris, " when I came 
 to Europe, after leaving a port of my own country, in sight of the 
 British flag, I travelled more than half round the world, and 
 found that flag flying everywhere ! After crossing our own seas, 
 we landed at Singapore, and found the flag there. We sailed over 
 another sea, and touched at Ceylon ; then at Bombay, then at 
 Aden on the Red Sea, and found the British flag in all of them. 
 We crossed over the Isthmus to Alexandria, and found nearly all 
 the ships in the harbor flying the same flag. We crossed the 
 Mediterranean, calling at Malta, and again at Gibraltar, and found 
 it there again. Finally, we anchored in a British port, and, of 
 course, the flag was there. But," said the Chinaman very shrewdly, 
 " I never saw the flag of Russia anywhere !" 
 
 Even here, in Canada, we have a firm which publishes^ its 
 business circulars in nearly every language on the face of the 
 globe. I hold in my hand a few of these circulars. Here is one 
 in the Chinese language ; here is another in Armenian ; another 
 is in Greek ; another in Hungarian ; another in Roumanian, and 
 another in Norwegian. These, I can assure you, are not literary 
 trifles for the curious, but circulars for men of business, setting 
 forth the merits of the manufacturer's ware. The gentleman, 
 whose advertisements I have shown you, told me he was once 
 travelling on business — Canadian business — in Eastern Russia, 
 and attending the fair of Nishni-Novgorod, a fair totally unlike 
 anything we know on this continent ; in which the business of a 
 whole year seems crowded into the transactions of a few days, 
 during which millions of money change hands, and goods 
 are concentrated for a short time, the product of every country 
 on earth, to be diffused during the rest of the year over the com- 
 munities of such a vast empire as that of Russia. My friend told 
 me that, standing in that fair and hearing the Babel of tongues 
 
ft 
 
 around him (for there were men speaking almost every European 
 and Asiatic language), and thinking of himself as alone in that 
 vast crowd (for there were about 100,000 merchants congregated), 
 he was suddenly touched upon the shoulder, and turning round, 
 saw the face of a well known friend from New York State, and 
 heard, in a very familiar tongue indeed, the salutation, " Hallo ! 
 my dear fellow, what on earth are you doing here ?" It transpired 
 that one had come to sell Sewing Machines from Canada ; the 
 other, Agricultural Implements from the States on its border. 
 They had met in this far distant city on the confines of Asia, 
 carrying the latest product of New \Vorld ingenuity for use over 
 Old World continents. Such is the sphere that now presents 
 itself to the occupation of a man of business ; such are the 
 conditions under which modern trade can be carried on. A 
 hundred years ago, the manufacturer could scarcely get beyond 
 the bounds of his own district. Fifty years ago it was difificult 
 to get beyond the limits of his own country ; — then even the 
 foreign trade of the British Empire was very circumscribed. 
 Now, the same men have the world open to them. Travellers 
 or agents scour whole continents on their behalf, and cross 
 oceans, and plant themselves amongst people of every language, 
 gathering up orders for goods to supply the wants of all 
 mankind. It is this that gives modern business its peculiar 
 character. These are the circumstances under which the modern 
 merchant has become what he is to-day. That all this has its 
 gODd aspect we are proud to acknowledge. It assists, in its 
 way, in carrying out the great command of the Creator to *' sub- 
 due the earth,"' and it has developed in its progress some of the 
 greatest qualities of our common nature. Such conquests as these 
 are more commendable than those of Caesar and Napoleon. These 
 " victories of peace" are no less renowned than those of war ; at 
 any rate, we may fairly claim they ought to be. 
 
 But out of these very characteristics of modem business many 
 of its vices have taken rise. Things to be regretted, that cause 
 pain and shame in their contemplation ; things that wise, and 
 good, and honorable men find it difficult to struggle with, can be 
 directly traced to the operation of those very forces which have 
 
9 
 
 been evoked in the world-wide struggles of these times we 
 live in. 
 
 Before entering upon this subject, let me say one word as to 
 the essential principle that should underlie all business operations. 
 Business takes its rise in the natural or acquired wants of 
 humanity, and the man that can supply these wants is the man 
 that has some business ready to his hand. The first wants are 
 food, clothing and shelter, and the man that can provide food, 
 the man that can provide clothing, the man that can provide 
 shelter, he is always certain, more or less, of occupation. All 
 such labor, in fact, implies that a service has been rendered 
 to the customer or the community. Now the rendering of 
 service is the true end of business. Bear this in mind, for it 
 is a fundamental consideration. I am thoroughly convinced that 
 the more we keep this in view, the more satisfactory and the 
 more profitable business relations will become. There will then 
 be a pleasure in carrying business on, a pleasure in producing the 
 article that is to be of service, a pleasure in the very manufacture 
 itself, whether we make much money by it or not. The man 
 that keeps this in view, has, at any rate, the consciousness that he 
 has filled a useful place in the community in which he dwells — 
 that he has done some service to the State in his time and day. 
 He has, it may be, furnished the clothing which was needed by 
 families, or he has rendered home elegant and cheerful by his 
 furniture. He has furnished food, or light, or books, or dwellings, 
 or the means and appliances for travel. He has brought the 
 production of one country to enrich another, or has enabled 
 others to do it. Let us keep this idea in view — that is, of business 
 being based on service rendered — and it gives it an elevation and 
 a dignity which rob it of the base attributes with which, in many 
 minds, it is associated. These notions of business have originated 
 entirely from that perverted idea of it which 'makes the getting 
 of money its primary object. When men fix their minds princi- 
 pally on making money, and for the sake of it practise the 
 debasing arts of deceit, adulteration, scheming, and over-reaching, 
 by which, too often, wealth is sought to be grasped, without the 
 labor which is the only proper pre-requisite to it, then business 
 
 1 
 
becomes base enough. But let me say this, that just as men may 
 miss an object by aiming directly at it, but may gain it by pursuing 
 a course which all experience proves to lead up to it, though in- 
 directly, so it happens in a large number of cases, that those who 
 make the getting of money their first object lose all the satisfaction 
 which arises, or should arise, from the carrying of business on, and 
 lose their main object besides. They that will be rich very seldom 
 acquire permanent wealth. They may have it, but it will flee 
 from them ; they may obtain it, but it will pass away. The 
 shoddy men of the Fifth Avenue do not stop there long. The 
 parvenu, boastful of his riches, seldom dies rich, and still more 
 seldom builds up a prosperous family, which inherits and carries 
 down his wealth to future generations. But the man that can do 
 something for the service of mankind, who takes a pleasure in 
 doing it — in doing good work for the work's sake, — and is 
 content with the reward which that doing brings, that is the man 
 who has satisfaction in his business as he proceeds. And when 
 wealth comes, as it probably will, it will be taken as a matter of 
 course, and coming in that manner, it will be counted not as the 
 summum bonutn of life, but valued at its proper worth. We have 
 much to unlearn in these modern days in this respect. We have to 
 " hark back" in order to get upon the track which we forsook many 
 years ago. A London tradesman of the modern school, calling 
 one of his employes to account, scolded him sharply because his 
 sales were so little in comparison with others ; and on the young 
 man replying that he sold all that the customers wanted, he replied, 
 " What is the good of that ? Any fool can do that. I want men 
 that can sell people what they don't want /" And there are men 
 that can do this — smart salesmen, so called. There are shops 
 and warehouses where this is known to be done, and the men 
 that keep these shops and warehouses, and carry on this forcing 
 business, may drive a prosperous trade for a time, and make 
 money ; but these very processes by which such results are 
 accomplished undermine the business in time. People, when 
 they find that goods are being pushed upon them that they don't 
 want, rather give that store the go-by in future. " Come, walk 
 into my parlor, said the spider to the fly," but, certainly, if the fly 
 
had been there once and got safely out, it would be careful not to 
 go there a second time. So this policy destroys itself. On the 
 other hand, the tradesman who takes care to keep good and 
 serviceable ware, builds up, if slowly yet surely, and gathers an 
 increasing trade about him — a trade which is built upon satisfac- 
 tory service rendered. It is this very system of driving and 
 pushing business beyond legitimate bounds, and selling people 
 what they don't want on a large scale, that brings about these 
 periodical reverses, under one of which we are suffering now. 
 " The love of money is the root of all evil," said an apostle. It 
 is certainly at the root of this. Men imagine that because they 
 make and sell a certain number of a given article, and reap a 
 certain profit from it, that if they could only double or treble 
 their sales they would make two or three times the money. 
 Accordingly they lay in larger and larger stocks, engage more and 
 more hands, and drive a larger and still increasing business, for- 
 getting that there are others taking the same view of things, 
 impelled by the same passion, driven along by the same desires, 
 each imagining that they, and they alone, are the wise men who 
 can double and treble their profits by observing the signs of the 
 times. The result, however, is, as a rule, the larger the business 
 the smaller the profit. A manufacturer who makes a certain 
 quantity of Woollens, Hardware or Lumber, and reaps a certain 
 profit for one or two years in succession, imagines that if he only 
 doubled the capacity of his mill he could make double the net 
 returns, and, consequently, with his own or borrowed capital 
 (only too frequently borrowed), he makes the enlargement. But 
 when his new machines are brought into play, he finds to his 
 grief that he cannot sell as readily as he did his old product. 
 He is then driven to pursue irregular, improper, and unhealthy 
 methods to force his goods on unwilling customers, who, in their 
 turn, have to do likewise with theirs. Now when this takes place 
 on a large scale, as it periodically does, all arising from that 
 desperate covetousness and greedy grasping after money, which 
 is so universal a passion in these days, against which we are so 
 often warned in Scripture, the whole world is full of the means 
 and appliances for over-production, the result being that there are 
 
\2 
 
 thrown on the market quantities of unsaleable goods, from which 
 speedily arise difficulty with bankers, insolvency, and general 
 prostration. 
 
 It would take too long to philosophize upon this interesting 
 subject of the proper bearings of production and consumption 
 from a world-wide point of view, and I must content myself with 
 briefly intimating that such a thing exists, and that in this is to 
 be found the root of troubles which have afflicted various eras 
 and times, and countries, and most notably the present, and our 
 own. This disturbance has taken place before ; but it was 
 neither so violent, nor did it come so often in former days. The 
 methods of business as then current did not lead up to such 
 results as a rule. There is an old way— an old-fashioned way, 
 some would call it, — and there is a new way. I desire now to 
 put the two together and see how they look side by side. Of 
 course, in making this comparison, I can only do so broadly and 
 generally, and premising that numbers of exceptions might be 
 found to the picture drawn both of the one and the other. 
 
 It will not, I believe, be disputed by those who knew the old 
 tiroes, the days of the last century and of the first quarter of this, 
 that the leading characteristics of business, as then carried on, 
 might be summed up as follows : — In the first place, there was, as a 
 rule, a long period of careful preparation on the part of those who 
 engaged in it, and a thorough mastering of the particular line of 
 business carried on. Equally conspicuous was the habit of care- 
 ful and wise economy, and of a steady and slow accumulation of 
 capital. There was also, as a marked characteristic, a care in 
 incurring liabilities, — the result of the whole being, in a majority 
 of instances, a tolerable amount of success, in a number of cases 
 what we would call a respectable competency, and in a few rare 
 instances the acquisition of a moderate fortune. Of the careful 
 preparation I need scarcely speak, and can only refer to the long 
 apprenticeship of youths to their several callings. Respecting 
 the thorough mastery of business, I need only to recall to your 
 
It 
 
 recollection how, on the continent of Europe, and in England, 
 the man who had learned his trade in one town or village was not 
 content until he had practiced it in some great capital where it 
 had attained its highest development ; or, as was the practice on 
 the continent, had made the round of various cities, and never 
 thought of setting up for himself until he had acquired the mastery 
 of the art in centres where it had attained pe'"f'*jtion. As to the 
 saving and gradual accumulation of capital, I can only recall those 
 who are familiar with the old times, either of England, New 
 England, or France, or Germany, to the manner in which, little 
 by little, pound by pound, the store went on accumulating, slowly, 
 quietly and gradually, but giving, let me say, immense satisfaction, 
 (far more satisfaction than our accumulations do in these days), 
 as it quietly and steadily grew. Let me say in passing, that it 
 is not the quantity of money that gives the satisfaction. There 
 never was a deeper philosophy than that uttered by the great 
 Teacher of mankind, that a man's life consisteth not in the 
 abundance of the things he possesseth. There is more real satis- 
 faction in quietly and persistently accumulating the first thousand 
 dollars, than there is in greedily grasping after, and getting, by 
 speculation (all but dishonestly) the half millions and millions 
 that are so glibly talked about in these modern times. There 
 was care taken in former days in incurring liabilities, for men in 
 those times valued their position, their honor, and their credit. 
 The word of an English merchant was his bond. The motto of 
 one of the most honorable of the great Guilds of England, those 
 Companies which form so prominent a feature in English business 
 life, was this : " If you would succeed in business, take care to keep 
 up your credit." And men kept up their credit then by punctuality, 
 by honesty, by being careful how much they bought, how much 
 they borrowed, and how much they became liable for on behalf 
 of others. They thoroughly believed then in the old Scripture 
 saying, " He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it ; but 
 he that hateth suretyship is sure." And as a consequence of all 
 this, in the business of old times, failure was a rare occurrence, 
 and something to be fought against until the very last, as bearing 
 dishonor to themselves and their children. Men succeeded then 
 
.'•/.,.:-■■/-■. : ■■ 14 
 
 far more generally than they do now. Whether they were better 
 men, wiser men, stronger men — men more capable of carrying 
 business on, or not, I do not absolutely sa\ ; but if to succeed 
 in what a man undertakes is a test of his wisdom, ability, and 
 capacity, then tried by this test, the busine">s men of former days 
 were superior to those of the present time. They succeeded 
 where we so often fail. si;. <■ > * . , ' 
 
 Now, turning over the leaf, and opening the chapter of our 
 Modern Business Society, — looking at it, I again repeat, broadly 
 and generally, remembering that there are many exceptions to 
 both conditions — (for there were reckless schemers in the old 
 time, and there are many who are the reverse now), — yet looking 
 broadly and generally over the wide field of business in these 
 times, I cannot but see that, to a large extent, the following 
 must be considered as its essential characteristics : — In the first 
 place, there has been an extraordinary development of business 
 ambition, and, following upon this, of restlessness. These two 
 combined have often developed recklessness, and all of them 
 have led on to unscrupulousness ; the end being a few instances 
 of vast accumulation and enormous wealth — fabulous sums 
 amassed in the hands of one man, such as were never heard of 
 in former days, coupled, on the other hand, with numbers 
 of failures, out of all proportion to what formerly prevailed, and 
 to a development, in these very failures themselves, of dishonesty, 
 of unlawful scheming, of criminal concealment, and the putting 
 in practice of every possible device for keeping back from creditors 
 that which is their lawful due. To such an extent is this now 
 the case, that a father, launching his son on the sea of business 
 life, cannot but be filled with apprehension — (and a very reason- 
 able apprehension, too) — that at some time or other his son may 
 be swept away by some great wave of inflation or speculation, 
 and stranded, where multitudes of others have been stranded, in 
 hopeless wreck and bankruptcy ; it being well if he escapes from 
 this without the dishonor of himself and his parents' good name. 
 
 Let me look at these things a little more particularly. I say 
 that modem business, especially in its larger manifestations, is 
 
15 
 
 characterized by Ambition. And here I do not refer to a reasonable 
 and wise desire to get on, as time and years go by, but to tHat 
 passion for large operations, extensive dealings, immense and 
 widely extended connections, which form a part of the very 
 atmosphere that is breathed by the younger men of our mercantile 
 circles, and which it requires unusual strength and fortitude of 
 will to resist. , - * ' -- > 
 
 There are men who are never satisfied unless they can 
 eclipse their neighbors, and before whose dazzled imagination 
 vast figures, immense lines of credit, and enormous operations 
 are flitting all day long. Such men are continually reaching out 
 their hands here, there, and everywhere, after new enterprises, 
 being all the while destitute of either the training, the experience, 
 the knowledge, or the capital which would alone ensure success. 
 Men who, perhaps, born and brought up in a country village or 
 small town, and whose education, training and capital fit them for 
 no other sphere, read in the newspapers about ventures, specula- 
 lions, and successful operations, and become fired with ambition 
 to emulate them. A man of this class, borrowing the means 
 from confiding and eager bankers, obtaining the guarantee of silly 
 and trustful friends, ventures out upon the wide sea with his 
 tiny bark, trusting that he will be able to do what the great 
 ocean steamer, with her staunch build, experienced commander, 
 and perfect appliances can alone accomplish. This is the kind 
 of man who is only too familiar to us, not only in this new and 
 progressive continent, but in the great commercial centres of the 
 old world. 
 
 Who can read the terrible revelations now coming to the 
 surface in connection with the men that have occasioned the 
 dreadful wreck of the City of Glasgow Bank, without feeling that 
 it was an insatiable and mad ambition to grasp a world-wide 
 trade that devoured them, — an ambition that went on with the 
 force and impetus of a blind passion, piling operation upon 
 operation, and venture upon venture, scheme upon scheme, and 
 credit upon credit, until their ships were sailing upon every sea, 
 and every ship-load resulting in further and further loss ; until their 
 ventures had accumulated results on every continent, and all 
 
16 
 
 these ventures were losing ones. Scandalous to sav, these men 
 themselves were trustees of others, supplying the means, out of 
 the very funds that had been entrusted to thera, for gratifying 
 that mad ambition, which, having overleaped itself, has fallen 
 so dismally on the other side, and dragged half Scotland down 
 along with it. ; i^--:^ .^., ; ; ■ 
 
 I have mentioned Restlessness as another outgrowth of the 
 peculiar conditions of modern life ; and here I cannot but appeal 
 to the experience with which we are familiar in our own country, 
 and of which we hear so much of in the States, of men exchanging 
 the occupation with which they have been familiar from childhood, 
 and of whose conditions they are perfectly cognisant, for one 
 they know nothing about, and the entering upon which is as pure 
 a venture and speculation, as would be the embarking of a man 
 on an unknown sea who had never manned an oar, or trimmed a 
 sail. It is sometimes boasted of as a virtue by our American 
 cousins, that if a man fail in one pursuit, he can, under the 
 conditions of society prevailing there, easily change it for another, 
 and that to another again. I cannot say that this is matter for 
 much boasting. The old adage is still true — "A rolling stone 
 gathers no moss." Of course I speak generally, and remembering 
 that every rule has its exception. This facility for change is bad 
 in its effect upon the moral calibre of the people, in its preventing 
 the exercise of those good old qualities of patience, perseverance 
 and courage under difficulties, that fighting against obstacles until 
 we become master of the position, which are part of the finest 
 characteristics of man. I do not know anything more beautiful 
 in Scripture story, than the description given, in three words, of 
 the attitude of Gideon's army when following the flying foe over 
 Jordan : " Faint, yet pursuing." Yes ; instead of this restlessness 
 which leads a man to change with every breath of wind, and at 
 the appearance of the slightest difficulty, to give up the pursuit 
 in which he is engaged and try another, I would hold it to be a 
 far better thing, a far more manly thing, to stick to that pursuit, 
 steadily and manfully, day after day, and year after year, conquer- 
 ing difficulties by perseverance, " turning the nettle, Danger, into 
 the flower. Safety," as Shakespeare puts it, learning lessons from 
 
n 
 
 defeat and difficulty, until the day conies when victory and a 
 competency appear as the reward of plodding toil. That, to 
 my mind, is a far finer sight than of the man \'ho goes about 
 restlessly from occupation to occupation, from State to State, from 
 Province to Province, being everything by turns, and nothing 
 long : doing no good either to himself, to his family, nor to the 
 community in which he dwells. It is this spirit of restlessless 
 which has induced so many of our farmers' sons to leave that best 
 of all pursuits, the cultivation and development of the soil which 
 God has given us, and to betake themselves to the villages and 
 towns, there to enter upon an occupation for which neither 
 education nor habits have fitted them. '* Keeping store," they 
 call it : which generally means, lazily loafing about through the 
 long hours of the day behind the counter, selling goods of whose 
 quality they are ignorant, which they have bought from credulous 
 wholesale dealers, to persons whom their own credulity induces 
 them to trust, — the end being, as we know by painful experience 
 in this good city of Montreal, what we call Failure. I say, what 
 we call Failure. That is, not failure to make a fortune, or acquire 
 a competency, or even to make a living, but failure to pay the 
 obligations they have contracted and to fulfil the promises 
 which they have made, — a failure which, in my judgment, inevi- 
 tably carries a certain amoir' of blame or disgrace with it. 
 
 I am not pleading here for such an old world system as pre- 
 vails from age to age, and century to century, in countries like 
 India, where men are rigidly bound in the trammels. of caste, 
 and where a father transmits his trade to his son, and he to his 
 again, generation after generation ; the only break to this monotony 
 being the dread breaking out of war, or the ravages of pestilence. 
 That is one extreme. But I must confess that there being an 
 extreme in that direction, we have swung on this continent to 
 the opposite one. 
 
 But far worse than this habit of restlessness is the next of 
 these too frequent characteristics of the time. I have said 
 that men have become reckless, and that much of modern business 
 is characterized by this dangerous feature. Ambitious and restless 
 
 
 
 —i\i- 
 
18 
 
 men are driven along by the violence of their fancies and 
 passions, carried away by the currents of influence and opinion, 
 and, consciously or unconsciously, in the hurry and multiplicity 
 of engagements which accumulate upon them, a reckless and 
 uncalculating habit of mind is generated. This recklessness is 
 often misnamed enterprise ; but the two have only the same relation 
 that a bad shilling has to a good one. There are elements of 
 danger in all trade operations ; but a thoughtful man, who values 
 his character, honor, and peace of mind, will calculate his risks, 
 keep them within due bounds, consider what may happen under 
 every contingency, and take care to provide against it. A wise 
 General, in the conduct of an army, will have his reserves, will 
 continue his line of communication, will not undesirably expose his 
 flanks, and in the midst of bold and daring operations, will take 
 care to leave a line of retreat open. Much of modern business, 
 however, is distinguished by an entire absence of this calculating 
 spirit. We advance boldly, without knowledge, without care, and 
 without sense. Men undertake enterprises without the slightest 
 knowledge of the conditions which alone can ensure success. 
 A stupendous instance of this sort of recklessness may be found 
 in the initiatory correspondence with regard to the construction 
 of our own Pacific Railway. We are beginning to find out, 
 after years of experiment, what such an enterprise means. We 
 have found that the work of surveying alone is one which 
 involves labor of long duration, toil and difficulty undreamed 
 of, and an outlay of time, labor, money, and life, which give 
 us some shadow of an idea of what will have to be encountered 
 when the thing itself comes to be attempted — when the road 
 has to be constructed over uninhabited regions, through rocky 
 mountain ranges, threading its way through horrible and stupen- 
 dous gorges, concentrating within itself all the engineering diffi- 
 culties which have ever been encountered since the world began. 
 Yet, in a preliminary stage of the negotiations which were on 
 foot about seven years ago, a letter was written by two persons 
 respecting it, who had never surveyed a yard of ground in their 
 life, had never constructed a mile of either turnpike or railway 
 from the day they were born — who were totally ignorant of every 
 
it 
 
 one of the conditions of the stupendous enterprise before them, — 
 yet they write a short note as if they were engaging to build a 
 house that would cost $5,000, and undertake to say that they 
 will *' build the road " for so much ! We have heard, as an illus- 
 tration of folly, of men making a railway to the moon. I cannot 
 conceive of any greater illustration of recklessness than is con- 
 tained in such an offer, considering who the men were that made 
 it. We must all have met with men of the same stamp — 
 men that were ready to undertake anything, at any time, to any 
 amount, and that without the command of the slightest means, 
 without the least experience, and with only the slenderest basis 
 of knowledge, — trusting to the sheer force of impudence on 
 their own part, and the ignorance of others, to carry them through. 
 What but recklessness could induce a man — albeit he was a man 
 of extraordinary capacity -like Strousberg, whose fame as a rail- 
 way contractor filled Europe a few years ago, to be engaged in 
 such a number of colossal undertakings at the same time, — build- 
 ing railways hundreds of miles long in Russia, in Roumania, in 
 the heart of (Jermany, in France, in the north of Europe, carrying 
 on at the same time great ironworks, building innumerable 
 cottages and workshops, buying up whole towns, enlarging and 
 improving cities, buying magnificent mansions in various parts 
 of the continent, opening banking accounts and credits in every 
 capital, borrowing enormous sums of money, and deceiving all 
 Europe, Englishmen included, with his daring and genius. Yet all 
 without systematic calculation, without a care for the conse- 
 quences of failure, with a most ridiculously inadequate amoimt of 
 capital — (if there was ever any capital in these enterprises at all), — 
 the whole being the outcome of a restless, ambitious, and reckless 
 brain, impelled by the forces of passion, covetousness, and 
 desire for power, the whole ending, as it did a year or two ago, 
 in a disastrous break down — bankruptcy, imprisonment, disgrace, 
 and final extinguishment. 
 
 From recklessness, 1 pass on to the next characteristic, closely 
 connected with it, and only another step in the same line of career, 
 yet with a deeper moral shade. I mean unscrupulousness. It is 
 one of the most painful characteristics of modern business when 
 
20 
 
 carried on on a large scale, that the men who engage in such 
 enterprises are often hurried along, sometimes almost uncon- 
 sciously, to do and say things which are unjust, untruthful, arbitrary, 
 and more or less dishonorable. This may seem a severe sentence, 
 but it is as true as it is severe. When men have had great objects 
 to accomplish, a great scheme to inaugurate, a great enterprise to 
 bring through many difficulties to a successful conclusion, there 
 has too often been developed a spirit of overbearing injustice, of 
 double dealing and treachery, of unfaithfulness to trusts, that has 
 left stains upon the good name of many, who, in private life, and 
 in the ordinary affairs of the world, have been truthful, honorable, 
 benevolent, and even apparently religious men. In connection 
 with the enormous development of public works which has taken 
 place during the Inst thirty or forty years, especially with the 
 construction of railways, and all that this construction has involved, 
 the promotion of Companies, the passage of Bills through 
 Parliament, the giving out of contracts, — all demanding the 
 employment of great numbers of men, the handling of vast sums 
 of money, the engagement of varied forms of talent, the exercise 
 of extraordinary knowledge of men and things, and an almost 
 superhuman courage and perseverance ; — in connection, I say, 
 with all this, there was developed also — (I speak plain facts) — an 
 amount of unscrupulousness which makes the record of the con- 
 struction of many such works, marvellous though they are, and 
 mighty monuments of human genius, too often a thing to be 
 looked upon with sorrow and shame. That maxim, so scan- 
 dalously perverted in religious affairs, ''2'he tiui sanctifies the means" 
 apparently became the rule by which men guided their conduct. 
 I'hat devilish saying that " all is fair in politics and war,'' was 
 applied to the political games by which enterprises were carried 
 through Legislatures and Parliaments, and by which war was 
 carried on against the tremendous forces of nature. In the last 
 century, a great Prime Minister sustained himself in power for 
 years by a cunningly devised system of bribery, skilfully applied, 
 and peculiarly adapted to the idiosyncrasy of the various persons 
 with whom he had to deal. Walpole's system died with him, but 
 it has been revived in another sphere of operation in these days. 
 
tl 
 
 With the era of the construction of great railways, particularly in 
 Anglo Saxon communities, there grew up an amount of corruption 
 and bribery which at length became an organized system, recog- 
 nized, expected, and to which the majority of men consen'cd, 
 shrugging the shoulders occasionally — their conscience giving 
 them a twinge now and then, as briber met the bribed : but 
 still going on without effectual check till its " iniquity was rank and 
 smelt to heaven." It has been known that a contractor for a rail- 
 way has made friends (after the manner of the unjust steward) 
 with the Engineer wlio had to certify to the goodness of his 
 work, and has prevailed upon thai Engineer to allow him to 
 deliver, instead of good, sound rails, second-hand, worn-out, and 
 discarded rails, whose only -proper use was to be melted down. 
 Such a thing has been known as for a Prime Minister to receive 
 a loan without security, for his own private use, from the con- 
 tractor of a road to be built iiy his (iovernment, it being perfectly 
 understood that payment of the loan was never to be demanded.* 
 And now in modern business in its larger developments, there 
 has grown up such a system of indirect advantages, commissions, 
 small briUes, gratuities, casual advantages, adulterations, imitations, 
 and what-not, that, as men sometimes think, it is impossible for 
 business to be carried on unless by recognizing them. Yet un- 
 scrupulousness is at the bottom of them all. Modern business, 
 too, has acquired many of the characteristics of warfare. This 
 is particularly the case with dealings on the great Stock Exchanges 
 of Europe. On the part of many who have occupied prominent 
 places there, the rules, methods, and spirit of warfare have become 
 conspicuous and chronic. The crushing of rivals, the laying of 
 ambuscades, the daring raids into the enemy's camp, the unscrupu- 
 lous publication of falsehoods, lying proclamations (like Napoleon's 
 old tactics), and deceptive telegrams, have become so common 
 that their essentially vicious and abominable character is entirely 
 forgotten, t 
 
 * I do not here refer to anything that has taken place in recent years 
 in this country. 
 
 t In the delivery of the lecture, 1 emphasized [the word Europe. 
 Bad habits, however, sometimes croas the Atlantic. It would perhaps not be 
 libellous to say that such things have been heard of even in this little sphere 
 of Montreal. 
 
22 
 
 The old-fashioned mode of conducting business was one in 
 which men were content to " live and let live," to be one of many, 
 to have your own trade, and to let your neighbor have his also. 
 But this spirit of aggression, which delights in nothing so much 
 as in trampling down and crushing those who are in the way, is 
 only too common a characteristic of those who have climbed to 
 the highest places in the modern business world, and from their 
 immense elevation tyrannise like despots over the struggling crowd 
 beneath. And their spirit is contagious. 
 
 Well, what is the result of all this ? What has it led to ? 
 What is the outcome of it all ? These characteristics, thus broadly 
 given (perhaps I have dwelt too strongly upon their darker phases, 
 but none can deny that they are characteristics), differing as they 
 do from those which prevailed in former days, must have different 
 fruit. And that they have very different fruit is patent enough to 
 any careful observer. The old style led to a moderate and almost 
 uniform success, to the making a quiet and honest living on the 
 part of the many, the acquirement of a competency on» the part 
 of a few, and of a respectable fortune for those times (such as 
 would be despised now) on the part of one here and there. But 
 in these days, it is only too true that the greater part of those who 
 engage in business do not succeed in it. They /aU, as the saying 
 is. But the word is one of those which are so ambiguous as to 
 be so absolutely delusive. To fail in business one would suppose 
 meant either not to make a competency, or not to be able to 
 maintain in respectability those dependent upon us. But our use 
 of this word implies much more and much worse, — viz., a failure 
 to perform promises ; a breaking of engagements, and a leaving 
 unpaid of honest debts, — all of which imply that for some time 
 past, longer or shorter, the person engaged in business has been 
 living upon his creditors, and, with a few honorable exceptions, 
 taking their money and appropriating their property, without their 
 knowledge and against tl^eir consent- — helping himself and his 
 family, who have lived often enough recklessly and lu.vuriously 
 all the time, to the means which they had acquired by honest 
 
ft 
 
 labor. Failure means that 1 have had a thousand dollars worth 
 of my neighbor's goods, and I pay him for only $200 worth of 
 them, spending or keeping the rest myself. Failure now-a-days 
 means that I have induced a monied friend or institution to lend 
 me $10,000, ostensibly for the purpose of carrying on an honor- 
 able and respectable business, but really to engage in stock or 
 business gambling, or to build and furnish extravagantly a house or 
 mill, and thus outrival my successful neighbor ; — the end of it 
 being that I go to my monied friend and say (in effect), " Consent, 
 if you please, to this arrangement : I will pay you $2,000 out of 
 this $10,000, if you will allow me to keep what represents the 
 other $8,000." And if my monied friend remonstrates, as he very 
 naturally will, I the person failing ! tell him very coolly that I 
 have spent the other $8,000, or put it where he cannot get it, 
 let him try as he will, and that if he will not take the $2,000, he 
 may do the best he can — perhaps get nothing. This is the meaning 
 oi failure in these enlightened times, and to this melancholy and 
 disreputable end very much of our business is brought. But so 
 it is. Our methods, indeed, have become so refined, that persons 
 are able to pass through this process again and again during their 
 lifetime. Two or three times in the course of a very few years, men 
 have been known to practice this piece of business-legerdemain, 
 their families all the while living in luxury, and they themselves 
 sometimes driving along with carriage and pair on the day 
 of the meeting of their creditors, while those very creditors, 
 whose money they are spending, quietly pass them on foot.* 
 
 * A creditor in these times may enjoy the singular pleasure of con- 
 ferring with his debtor in a magnificent hbrary, the property — save the 
 mark ! — of the debtor's wife, as to the expediency of taking five cents in the 
 dollar by composition, or winding up his estate by an assignee and getting 
 one and a half! That creditor may even have the further gratification of being 
 reviled by tHe debtor and his family for having the audacity to enquire into 
 the manner in which the splendidly furnished house — with library aforesaid — 
 became the property of the lady rather than the gentleman — her husband. 
 Nay, to such a pass has public Sentiment come, that the Board of Trade of 
 the Dominion lately demeaned themselves to elect an undischarged bankrupt 
 as President, and actually discussed the provisions of the Insolvency Law while 
 
24 
 
 This is one development, and a very disgusting development, 
 of modern methods of business. 
 
 Along with this, there is another which is just as striking, 
 viz., the accumulation, in the hands of a few, of enormous 
 and colossal fortunes, such as were never dreamed of in former 
 days. Our modern system, which, as I have observed, gives 
 a man all the world for his customers, enables men of 
 gigantic capacity and iron-willed energy, coupled, not always, — 
 but too often, — with determined unscrupulousness, to do such 
 masses of business and accumulate such enormous profits, 
 that they stride the commercial world like a colossus, leaving 
 lesser men to crawl beneath with fear and trembling. Men like 
 the late A. T. Stewart, who complained, a few years ago, when he 
 returned his income to the tax assessors of New York at the much 
 diminished sum of $r, 800,000, ! and left behind a fortune to be 
 measured only by tens of millions, scattered over two or three 
 continents. Or like that other great magnate, whose family are, 
 and have for some time past been scandalising the world with 
 their disgusting squabbles over his private affairs. He left his 
 family millions upon millions to fight about, and fighting about it 
 they are, like hungry dogs about a bone. This squabble arose 
 through some of them being left with the miserable pittance 
 of $1,000,000 a piece ! A million forsooth ' Only a million ! Is 
 not this an extraordinary example of the deceitfulness of riches, 
 that these people, left with a million doUan;, look down upon it 
 with disgust, as if a million were equivalent to beggary ! But thus 
 it is. The men who helped themselves by millions at a time from 
 the treasury of the City of Glasgow Bank, consisting of moneys 
 
 he was Chairman ! Some unkind critics might say that nobody could discuss 
 a law Hke this with so much intelligence as a trader who was having personal 
 experience of it. These things have become a public scandal amongst us, 
 and it is high time a healthier public sentiment was generated. In the very 
 nature of things, for a man not to pay his debts is a thing to be ashamed of— - 
 a thing to be so utterly avoided that a debtor would scorn to retain a fine 
 house and furniture after he became unable to discharge his obligations. An 
 honest sentiment would be that a man would almost sell the very coat from 
 his back rather than leave his debts unpaid. 
 
25 
 
 carefully scraped together, pound by pound, year by year, of the 
 hard-worked professional man, of the economical maiden lady, of 
 the widow living quietly on the little competency left by her in- 
 dustrious tradesman husband ; the money deposited for safety by the 
 tacksman of the remote Highlands, the farmer saving up his gains 
 until his rent became due, and all the multitude of the thrifty 
 class, who have made Scotland what it is to-day, — these men, I say, 
 taking the money of the people who were a thousand times better 
 than themselves, no doubt intended to pile up one of those 
 colossal fortunes, and to die leaving their millions behind them. 
 But they unfortunately have left their millions, not as a fortune, 
 but as a disgraceful mass of debt, to liquidate which will ruin 
 thousands. ■ ■ :. ^ ,..••..• . ■j>ii,i>:f.i'v-M -^r. 
 
 Much of this may sound strange to you ; and it is 
 certainly in flat contradiction to things that are very often said ; 
 said not by wise men, for they know better, but by the thought- 
 less and the ignorant, knowing but little of life. There cannot 
 be a greater delusion than to imagine that the real value and 
 preciousness of this life of ours is bound up in material wealth. 
 Wealth of mind, spiritual riches, the wealth which a man has who 
 has choice and staunch friends ; the wealth of books, the wealth 
 of house and wife, and children, and family, — these are realities. 
 They are true. They are solid. They are lasting. One of the wisest 
 and most discriminating critics of modern times has observed that 
 in the order of God's Providence, the only really precious things, 
 the valuable treasures of life, home, friends, wife, children, health, 
 are within the reach of all, both rich and poor alike. But this 
 debasing sentiment, scorned even by wise heathen, and much 
 more to be scorned by instructed christians, — this degrading 
 passion for accumulation, is a thing to be abhorred by God and 
 man. Nothing can be more true as a matter of experience, that 
 " they who wi// be rich fall into a snare, and into grievous and 
 hurtful lusts, that drown men in destruction and perdition." 
 
 In saying this, it may be objected that I am standing in the 
 way of modem progress, and want to turn the wheels of time back. 
 
 i> 
 
2H 
 
 Nothing of the kind. Progress is the law of God's universe. 
 Progress is undoubtedly God's destiny for mankind. God himself 
 has given us the command to take the whole earth, and bring its 
 forces under subjection. That task is not half accomplished yet. 
 Still less is that higher command accomplished, of bringing the 
 spiritual world under His sway. But there is a progress which 
 lasts, and there is one which does not last. There is a progress 
 which is intermittent and unhealthy ; an eager race for a time, 
 all hot, breathless, and uneasy, ending in a break-down and col- 
 lapse. There is, on the other hand, a quiet, steady, persistent 
 progress, from which a nr.an never turns back ; in which he makes, 
 step by step, an advance, from which he never recedes, his pro- 
 gress resembling the development of God's dispensations, or the 
 march of the great universe itself, in which there is no going back, 
 and no standing still. This is a progress which yields permanent 
 satisfaction, and this progress, the principles I have laid down 
 will certainly secure. 
 
 I have dwelt, you see, very largely upon the unfavorable 
 aspects of modern business. I wish, indeed, to lift my voice 
 rather as a note of warning. The times that we are passing 
 through are fruitful in stern and severe lessons. We were drunk 
 with the spirit of inflated ambition and rapid fortune-making a 
 few years ago. So were England and Scotland, and so were the 
 United States. All the things I have been describing had 
 their full swing and mighty course in those days, when we all 
 thought we were so rich and prosperous. But the revels of the 
 night have been succeeded by the calm reflection of a very 
 sober morning. We are in that morning of reflection and sobriety 
 now. Let us make a wise use of it. We can take a calm view of 
 what a few years ago it would have been impossible to judge 
 rightly. We see things now as we never saw them before, and 
 we are coming to find out how true many of those old Scripture 
 sayings are, which in times of ambition and recklessness we were 
 apt to despise as mere material for sermon-making. The true 
 philosophy of all money-getting was condensed into a single 
 sentence, thousands of years ago, by the wisest man of his age 
 and time, whose Book of Proverbs still lives for our guidance in 
 
27 
 
 secular as well as spiritual things. You may read there that 
 " wealth gathered by labor shall increis?, but that which is gotten 
 by vanity shall be diminished." Vanity here siands in opposition 
 to labor. Labor on the one hand, with it> slow and steady, but 
 sure processes, ending in wealth, increasing, and permanently 
 maintained. Vanity on the other, represented, I should say, by 
 what we call speculative operations, a reckless style of business, 
 the getting of things by happy-go-luck, stock gambling — every- 
 thing, in fact, that is not the outcome of labor. Such wealth, 
 although it may be gathered, and is gathered, through specula- 
 tion and trade gambling, and may give a man a fortune, 
 yet the saying of the wise man, the result of his experience, is, 
 that wealth gathered in this way decreases. It takes to itself 
 wings and flies away, leaving behind it a demoralized life. For 
 such men, when wealth is once gone, are rarely good for anything 
 in the world again. Our Lord, in His sermon on the Mount, laid 
 down a rule, which, if observed in business transactions, would 
 prevent nine-tenths of the evils that I have been attempting to 
 describe. Do unto others as you tvould have others do unto you. 
 Put yourself in the i)lace of other men. Consider them. Deal 
 fairly by them. Live and let live. .\void monopoly. Don't 
 trample men down that come in your way, as you would not 
 yourself be trampled down by others who may come after you. 
 Business carried on on such principles satisfies both buyer and 
 seller, and is profitable for both. There is another sentence later 
 on in the same Book of life and light, which relates to some 
 idle busybodies who were the plague of early churches. Against 
 these an Apostle warned his friends — (and they lived in a busy 
 commercial city) — that they should study to be quiet, and to mind 
 their own business, and to work with their own hands. How 
 admirable these words sound in these times of restlessness and 
 disquietude. To mind our own business : to /lave a business, to 
 be master of it — a business that we can call our own, not some- 
 thing that we have robbed our neighbor of, but got for ourselves 
 honestly and fairly, — to mind this business, giving the mind and 
 the thought and the calculation to it, and putting our hands to 
 the work — and in the end, not only paying our debts and providing 
 
things honorably in the sight of all men, but having a superfluity 
 to give to him that needeth. Against the idle, thriftless and 
 " loafing " habits which are so common to the younger men in 
 wealthy communities, by which some of the most promising young 
 men in this country have already been destroyed ; habits which 
 result largely from the want of business and occupation, against 
 these how impressively are we warned in that Book of Proverbs 
 which I have quoted before : " Go to the ant, thou sluggard, con- 
 sider her ways and be wise ; For she having neither guide, 
 overseer nor ruler, prepareth her food in the Summer, and gather- 
 eth that which she needeth until the Harvest." 
 
 If young men now beginning life would escape the pitfalls 
 which modern business life offers ; if they would be honorable 
 and successful, and continue a career which they can look back 
 upon at the close of life without remorse or regret ; giving pleasure 
 to talk about to their children, let them drink deep into these 
 fundamental principles of conduct, and of life. Let f/iese be the 
 guide ; and I venture to say, that they will conduct any business 
 that may be entrusted to them by others with satisfaction to their 
 employers and with credit to themselves. They will mtnti his 
 business. They will not be slothful, nor wasteful of his time. 
 They will do to him as they would he should do to them ; that is, 
 in a word, they will be faithful. And when called upon to assume 
 higher responsibilities and to embark in the great sea of business 
 for themselves, I will venture to say that they will not /a/7. For 
 it is in the power of men so to conduct their business, that failure 
 is almost impossible. If young men engage in a business for 
 which they have been trained ; if they are industrious, if they 
 avoid vanity, foolish spending, speculation, and extravagance in 
 living ; if they make it their business to deal honorably by cus- 
 tomers and creditors ; if they mind a. business when it has become 
 their own, be quiet about it and persistent ; if they provide, that 
 is, look ahead ; consider carefully, avoid entangling engagements ; 
 if they make it a rule to "owe no man anything" — (that is, 
 pay everything on the day it is due, the plain meaning of the 
 passage), — I venture to predict success as the outcome of their 
 career. You will not, at any rate, disgrace your family, your 
 
29 
 
 friends, or your children. You may not build up a colossal 
 fortune, but you will have what is a great deal better— a good 
 name. Having a rule of guidance you will learn to use wealth 
 as a wise steward. You will distribute liberally and give con- 
 siderately. And you will have the wisdom, while in life, to dispense 
 much of that with which God has enriched you. And if you 
 do not leave a fortune for your children to quarrel about, to be a 
 perpetual source of heartburning, strife and misery amongst those 
 who bear your name in coming days, you will leave them what is 
 m every respect of infinitely more value— the heritage of a name, 
 which your children will be proud of, and thankful for. And 
 you will leave to the community an example of what a man 
 may be, who eschews the evil influences of the times and the 
 passing days in which his lot is cast, and guides every action 
 of his life by those principles of light, justice and truth, which 
 are embalmed in God's Eternal Word.