.Ufa 
 
 No. I 1 "^^S" 
 
 Fifteen Cents 
 
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 mew JBDucation in tbe dburcb 
 
 Series 
 
 tTbe 3Bible as Xiteratute 
 
 By W. FiDDIAN MOULTON, M.A. 
 
 of St. John's College, Cambridge, Eng. 
 15 cents. 
 
 ^be (3oIDen IRule in :iBudine50 
 
 By Charles F. Dole. 
 15 cents. 
 
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t^t 6ofben Qfitufe 
 
 3n (gtt0ttte00 
 
 BY 
 CHARLES F. DOLE 
 
 MEADVILLE, PENNA : 
 
 FLOOD AND VINCENT 
 €\>t ^t)autauqua^(Centuc|a pce^i^ 
 
 1895 
 
 
 'S$^ 
 

 
 5 
 
 Copyright, 1895, 
 
 By FlX)OD & ViNCKKT 
 
 The Chau/augua-Ceniury Press, MeadviUe, Pa., U. S, A. 
 Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by Flood & Vincent 
 
t4 
 >% 
 
 I- 
 
 ^ 
 
 THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 TO MY GOOD FRIEND, 
 
 BISHOP J. H. VINCENT, 
 
 IN EARNEST SYMPATHY 
 
 WITH HIS WISH FOR THE GROWTH 
 
 OF A STRONGER FAITH 
 
 IN PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 Theory and practice ; The moral universe ; 
 The sway of the Golden Rule. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Golden Rule : What it Means . . 13 
 What the rule says ; Certain puzzling ques- 
 tions ; How men explain away the Golden 
 Rule ; The spirit of Jesus : a new inter- 
 pretation. 
 
 II. 
 
 Is THE Golden Rule Practicable for This 
 
 World? 17 
 
 What all men admit ; A significant fact ; 
 Love and intelligence ; What the world says 
 of unbrotherly brothers ; In the realm of 
 friendship ; Among various brotherhoods ; 
 The Christian Church an exception ; The 
 real church ; The undoubted empire of the 
 Golden Rule. 
 
 III. 
 The Golden Rule and Nature .... 25 
 A law of cooperation ; What kind of min- 
 isters the world wants ; What kind of teach- 
 ers ; The good physician ; The great artists ; 
 The kind of artisans we all want; The 
 
vi Contents, 
 
 farmers ; Labor and the Golden Rule ; What 
 the Golden Rule does for women's work ; 
 What sort of men we want in politics ; The 
 Eternal Umpire. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Golden Rule and Trade . ... 32 
 What men say of our present system of 
 trade ; What trade is for ; Where men like 
 to trade ; The lines of justice and human 
 service ; The new competition ; The law of 
 "supply and demand" translated; The 
 Golden Rule in "the labor market "; Things 
 which we must not expect ; The ills of the 
 present industrial system and how their cure 
 must come. 
 
 V. 
 
 The Golden Rule as a Venture ... 40 
 A terrible "if" ; Is honesty the best pol- 
 icy ? The element of venture ; A concession 
 about money-making ; About bad kinds of 
 business ; About high salaries ; The risk of 
 unpopularity ; Nevertheless, it is safe to do 
 right ; The Golden Rule and human prog- 
 ress ; Faith and certainty. 
 
 VI. 
 
 What Makes Success 47 
 
 Getting and giving ; The law of life ; 
 Wherein Jesus succeeded ; The complete 
 manhood ; The appeal to facts. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Golden Rule in Organization . . 51 
 
 The weakness of the individual ; The 
 
Contents. vii 
 
 trend of modern civilization ; How com- 
 binations work ; What holds labor unions 
 together ; A new kind of combinations ; 
 How the best will overcome the worst ; The 
 binding power of friendliness ; The method 
 of Jesus ; The new office of the church ; The 
 church as it has been and the church as it 
 must be ; A new and noble test ; What it is 
 to be a Christian. 
 
 Questions 59 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It is well known that students may pur- 
 sue the principles of bookkeeping or navi- 
 gation and yet not know how to 
 apply these principles to keeping praSfcef*^^ 
 a set of books or sailing a ship. 
 There is a growing suspicion that the fine 
 teachings of our Sunday-schools likewise fail 
 to make valid connection with practical life. 
 Young people are taught to recite the Beati- 
 tudes or to tell the story of Jesus, without 
 being made to think what these magnificent 
 ideas and this splendid example have to do 
 with ordinary buying and selling, or with vot- 
 ing, on occasion, against the unworthy can- 
 didates of one's own party. 
 
 This pamphlet is prepared with the pur- 
 pose of showing what our Christianity has to 
 do with the familiar practices of 
 business. It is written in the con- J^v^sef^ 
 viction of the most impressive fact 
 that has ever dawned upon the mind of man. 
 This fact is, that we live in a divine universe. 
 It is a realm of beneficent law, extending to 
 
X Introduction. 
 
 every particle of matter and to every event 
 and moment of life. Every intelligent per- 
 son knows that, so far as visible and material 
 things go, we cannot break a law with im- 
 punity. We cannot break the laws of con- 
 struction with walls and bridges, and not 
 come to grief There is no chance in all the 
 outward world to cheat or evade, and not 
 sooner or later be caught. The whole visi- 
 ble world, however, is only a vast system of 
 parables, illustrations, and object lessons of 
 the vaster world of thought — the moral and 
 spiritual world — to which men belong. 
 
 I am persuaded that the rule of the moral 
 law is no less rigorous than the law of gravi- 
 tation. If justice is g^ood for any 
 
 The sway of . . . r u -r - - , 
 
 the Golden men it IS good for all; if it is the 
 duty of any it is the duty of all; 
 it is universal; it is inexorable; you cannot 
 violate it. If the Golden Rule is the rule of 
 a Christ, it is the rule of all men. If it holds 
 good in heaven, or in any shining sphere, it 
 holds good in this earth here and now. If 
 physical laws, obeyed, keep our homes and 
 our bodies safe, so this law only more surely 
 keeps our lives safe, and constitutes the 
 health of human society. As there is no 
 law of things that men can afford to be ig- 
 
Introduction. xi 
 
 norant of or to discredit, so they cannot 
 aflford to doubt this master law of the moral 
 life. This would not be a divine universe if 
 the Golden Rule did not accurately apply in 
 this earth where we live. The Golden Rule 
 goes with our belief in the good God. It is 
 idle to talk of the one if we doubt the other. 
 The following pages are designed to show 
 how this is so and that it cannot be other- 
 wise. 
 
©je (Bolben Hule in Business. 
 I. 
 
 THE GOLDEN RULE: WHAT IT MEANS. 
 
 Every one knows what the Golden Rule 
 says : Whatsoever ye would that men should 
 do to you, do ye even so to them. 
 The Good Master quotes it from J^ie^ayl. 
 the Old Testament. The Chinese 
 have the same in another form: What you 
 would not wish done to yourself do not to 
 others. We do not know what man in the 
 distant past first announced this rule. What 
 we do know is that Jesus put new life and 
 reality into it. He made it the law of his 
 own beautiful life, and, since he uttered it, 
 there has never failed from the earth a line of 
 noble and generous men and women who 
 have actually tried to put this rule into 
 practice. 
 
 As soon as we stop to think about the 
 Golden Rule, and especially when we begin 
 to apply it to the conduct of business, it does 
 
 13 
 
14 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 not look so plain as it seems when read by 
 the minister in church. Suppose 
 ziing ques- a child asks what he would wish 
 to have others do unto him ? If 
 he is foolish, he would like to be flattered and 
 indulged ; if he is lazy, he would like to be 
 excused from his task ; if he is selfish, he 
 would like to be given more than his share of 
 dainties. The tramp wishes gifts ; the crim- 
 inal would like to be let out of jail. The 
 buyer, too, wishes the lowest possible price, 
 as the seller desires the highest. How much 
 should you give the man who brings provis- 
 ions to your door ? Are you to give what 
 you would wish, if you had caught the fish, 
 cut the wood, or hoed the potatoes ? It is 
 evident that here, as everywhere else in this 
 complicated human life, there is need not 
 merely of obedient intent, but of intelligence, 
 judgment, common sense, and the knowledge 
 of the facts of each case. 
 
 Moreover the Golden Rule happens to be 
 found among a group of very hard and radi- 
 cal sayings. The famous Sermon 
 
 How men ex- i ■»«• n t i 
 
 plain away the OU the MoUUt CallS the mCCK, 
 Golden Rule. . ., , - 
 
 the mourners, and the persecuted, 
 blessed ; it bids men use no oaths ; it coun- 
 sels non-resistance ; it commands us to love 
 
What it Means. 15 
 
 our enemies. Surely, men say, Jesus cannot 
 expect to be taken seriously in these teach- 
 ings. They are ' ' Counsels of perfection ' ' ; 
 they are heavenly ideals, in other words, im- 
 possible for men who live in the real world. 
 You accordingly have at last a new version of 
 the difficult old rule. It is said, ' ' Do unto 
 others as you would expect them to do unto 
 you," wherein the beauty of the magnificent 
 rule has dismally evaporated. 
 
 The truth is that Jesus' teachings cannot 
 be read, or interpreted, or applied, like a 
 legislative code. The character- 
 
 . . , . . . . . The spirit of 
 
 IStlC of his teachmg is not in its Jesus ; a new 
 
 form, but in its spirit. The Golden 
 Rule, like the other great passages with which 
 it is grouped, is the effort to express in words 
 what is more than words or acts, namely, a 
 new spiritual attitude or temper. Herein is 
 Jesus' originality. Whatever you do, he 
 teaches, treat men as friends, show yourself 
 friendly, hold men as brothers, meet them on 
 the street, buy and sell with them in the 
 friendly temper. Jesus' idea is too large to 
 be fixed in any single form of expression. It 
 is summed up in the splendid figure of the 
 sun, pouring its light upon the evil and the 
 good. So, says Jesus, is the love of God. 
 
1 6 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 Be ye therefore the children of God, pouring 
 out your lives in loving good-will, like the 
 Father. This interpretation of the Golden 
 Rule relieves us of the difficulties in applying 
 it, made by a narrow literalism. The ques- 
 tion is no longer, what my customer, my 
 workman, the beggar, or the foolish child 
 strictly would wish, or what I would wish in 
 his place. The larger question is. What is 
 the best that I can do, in each set of circum- 
 stances, as a friendly man^ who aims to give 
 his life, after Jesus' fashion and spirit, to the 
 welfare of his brothers? It may be pure 
 friendliness that sends the thief to jail, that 
 refuses the tramp, that imposes difficult tasks 
 on the child, that pays the baker and fisher- 
 man neither more nor less than the customary 
 or market price. The law of friendly action 
 — of love — ^aiming at the highest good of all, 
 as it must be above the whims of the foolish 
 or selfish, so it is above the mere wish of any 
 individual, however kind-hearted. This will 
 need fuller illustration as we go on. 
 
II. 
 
 IS THE GOLDEN RULE PRACTICABLE FOR 
 THIS WORLD? 
 
 We ARE ready to show that the Golden 
 Rule is no idle ''Counsel of perfection," no 
 mere theory or imaginary ideal, 
 but the highest actual law of ^IStf"*"^" 
 human life here and now. There 
 is fortunately one great realm of life, where 
 no one can doubt what we are saying. It is 
 the home. So far is the Golden Rule from 
 being impracticable in the realm of the honie, 
 that nothing else will serve to hold a home 
 together. Where selfishness is, where self- 
 indulgence pushes to the front, where there 
 is scrambling and quarreling, in that hour or 
 day when the Golden Rule lapses, the home 
 is spoiled. The home begins as soon as a 
 single life in the family group gives itself 
 in love for the welfare of the others. The 
 home is a success, a joy to enter, and a place 
 of rest to stay in, where all the members down 
 to the young children breathe the atmosphere 
 of thoughtful helpfulness. Better the tiniest 
 
 17 
 
1 8 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 house, where by the natural conditions of 
 daily service the law of love has constant ex- 
 ercise, than the most sumptuous mansion, 
 whose inmates, being waited upon by a 
 retinue of servants, forget the cardinal idea of 
 the home. It is ' * not to be ministered unto 
 but to minister." For the love which 
 cements the family together grows strong, not 
 by getting much, but by giving and doing, in 
 the spirit of Him who said, * * It is more blessed 
 [that is, happy] to give than to receive." 
 
 We have also, in the plain facts of the 
 home life,- ready answer to the question. 
 
 What will become of the individ- 
 A^significant ual if he ''cstccms others better 
 
 than himself"? Who will take 
 care of him if he does not look out for him- 
 self? The beautiful fact is, as a rule, that 
 whoever does most for the common good of 
 the home, whoever gives it most hearty serv- 
 ice, is the one who gets most out of 
 its life and enjoys it best. Whoever gives 
 most love and demands the least in return 
 is apt to be precisely the one whom every 
 one loves most. In these high things the 
 rule of getting seems to be, not to try to get 
 at all. We shall have occasion later to trace 
 this more fully. 
 
Is the Golden Rule Practicable? 19 
 
 I have to protest here in passing against a 
 common proverb that ''love is blind." It 
 does often seem blind. There 
 are sweet and loving women who hueiulence. 
 make themselves slaves to the 
 selfishness of their husbands. There are sis- 
 ters who give up their chance of education 
 and happiness, and contrive to sacrifice other 
 rights besides, in an unthinking sense of 
 duty to their home. The fact is, that true 
 love is intelligent. It sees the ends toward 
 which it moves. Toward the real and larger 
 welfare of its object it gives itself lavishly, 
 but it has no right to give itself merely to 
 minister to the ease, the selfishness, the com- 
 placency of another. This would be to harm 
 the other. If true love is to keep the 
 Golden Rule, it is not love to help our best 
 friends to break the Golden Rule, and so to 
 lose the prizes of life. 
 
 I lay stress upon the' working of the Golden 
 Rule in the home, because here is a central 
 point of departure from which to 
 reach all the regions of human ^^fd lays of 
 life. Thus the brothers of a fam- S^otSr^!'^"^ 
 ily grow up and go into business. 
 Having treated one another as brothers, and 
 having found the Golden Rule to work as 
 
20 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 long as they lived under the same roof, will 
 they now change all this and take up the 
 weapons of suspicion and unfriendliness 
 toward one another ? On the contrary, the 
 whole world pronounces against brothers who 
 are mean enough to hurt each other in busi- 
 ness. The man who gets an advantage in 
 trade to the loss of his own brother had bet- 
 ter not let it be known ' * on the street. ' ' 
 
 The Golden Rule also marches out of the 
 home and covers the realms of our friend- 
 ships. What else does friendship 
 iffrilnSlSi). mean than that friends treat each 
 other after the fashion of brothers 
 and sisters? The Golden Rule cements 
 friendship as it binds the home. ^ Perhaps 
 you think that you can be a friend in social 
 relations, but you need not be a friend in a 
 bargain. The ordinary judgment of the 
 world then proclaims you to be no true friend 
 at all. Who will value your friendship for a 
 moment, after you have tried to get the bet- 
 ter of him in a trade ? You are absolutely 
 bound to observe the Golden Rule, at least 
 toward your friends, if you want to keep 
 them. You can no more afford to push and 
 crowd them in business than you can 
 venture to push and crowd them to the 
 
Is the Golden Rule Practicable? 21 
 
 wall at a social party. See then at once how 
 the Golden Rule extends its sway. 
 
 The bond of friendship also takes up a 
 great many almost superficial and conven- 
 tional relations among men and 
 
 rj.. 1 Among 
 
 women. There are large num- various 
 
 , 1 t 1 i brotherhoods. 
 
 bers of people who belong to 
 lodges, orders, and brotherhoods. If a man 
 is going to cheat or play a sharp trick in 
 business, I suspect that he had better not 
 touch the members of his own lodge of 
 Masons or Odd Fellows. The Golden Rule 
 will confront him some day in his lodge room 
 with its eternal rebuke of hypocrisy. I am 
 told that even on the Stock Exchange an 
 irresistible code of honor compels the man 
 who might be cruel and crafty in his dealings 
 with * ' the lambs ' ' outside, to be true and 
 even generous toward his ''brothers" of the 
 Exchange. 
 
 We come now to a singular anomaly, which 
 has puzzled thousands of plain people and 
 made endless scandal. It is the 
 
 f. ,. - - .-11 The Christian 
 
 comparative failure of the Golden church ,- an 
 
 T^ 1 - ,, ^. . . exception. 
 
 Rule among fellow Christians. 
 You will hear men of large experience fre- 
 quently say that they have found thorough- 
 going friendship elsewhere, perhaps among 
 
22 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 the members of their lodge, or in individu- 
 als who made no profession to belong to any- 
 church, while they have repeatedly suffered 
 unfriendly treatment from their brother 
 church members. The idea of Jesus about 
 these things is as plain as day. You will 
 know his friends, so he invariably teaches, 
 by the fact that they love one another — that 
 is, keep the Golden Rule. So far as he 
 meant to establish a church, it was evidently to 
 be the closest and the least conventional kind 
 of brotherhood. It is hard enough to 
 imagine that Jesus would ever have accepted 
 as one of his friends — that is, as a Christian 
 — a person who broke the Golden Rule 
 toward outsiders, toward heathen, toward 
 heretical Samaritans, much less who made 
 his living by breaking it. But it is quite im- 
 possible to think of Jesus as admitting those 
 to be Christians at all who break the Golden 
 Rule toward their fellow Christians. * *What !' ' 
 we hear him say, * ' do you call yourselves by 
 my name and yet dare to injure or cheat my 
 friends, your own brothers and sisters ? You 
 have missed then the one idea for which I 
 gave my life." 
 
 The anomaly of which I speak, however, 
 is one of the very exceptions which at last 
 
Is the Golden Rule Practicable? 23 
 
 ** proves the rule." In so far as a church 
 at any time contains genuine per- 
 sons, whenever there has been a ^^^^^} 
 true revival of the good life — 
 among the Moravians, among the Quakers — 
 when Wesley, Channing, General Booth, 
 Phillips Brooks have preached the veritable 
 gospel — you mark the tide of the new life 
 absolutely by the working of the Golden 
 Rule. You will find at every such point an 
 actual enlargement of the real church of 
 Christ. You find at least individuals who, 
 having caught Jesus' idea of a life of friendly 
 service, are honestly conducting their busi- 
 ness on the beautiful lines of the Golden 
 Rule. I maintain that this number is already 
 considerable. The disappointment that we 
 feel about the church is, that the spirit of the 
 Golden Rule, which splendidly characterizes 
 individual members, has not yet spread so as 
 definitely to control the whole body. 
 
 You may liken the region of business, and 
 in many respects you must liken the church 
 also, to a land of hills and plains, 
 
 . . . The undoubted 
 
 Upon which the sun, just rismg, empire of the 
 
 . Golden Rule. 
 
 has already begun to shme mto 
 
 the windows of the houses on the hilltops. 
 
 Wherever brothers and kindly kinsfolk dwell, 
 
24 The Golden Rule in Business, 
 
 wherever friends live, wherever friendship, 
 even in its semblance, is organized into so- 
 cieties and fellowships, wherever also the 
 church idea is vital, the Golden Rule already 
 is seen in its beneficent operation. It begins 
 to look now as though those ought to be 
 obliged to prove their case who deny that the 
 Golden Rule is practicable. 
 
III. 
 
 THE GOLDEN RULE AND NATURE. 
 
 It is often hastily assumed that nature is 
 wholly against the Golden Rule. Selfishness, 
 it is said, drives the wheels of the 
 world. This is to leave out of ^pi^rItiom°" 
 sight an immense and impressive 
 series of facts. It would be truer to say that 
 the world is a vast parable of some deep law 
 of cooperation. You see it at work in every 
 crystal, you see it in the frost-work of your 
 window-pane. You see it binding birds to- 
 gether in flocks, cattle in herds, bees in hives. 
 You see it in its culmination in man. There 
 is that, even in his animal nature, which binds 
 him in social relations with his fellows. His 
 better nature finds abiding contentment no- 
 where more than in friendly service. Jesus 
 was the forerunner of a long line of those who 
 have not only lived the good life, but have 
 lived it with serene gladness. 
 
 I wish to show how, in various important 
 respects in the realm of business, the deeper 
 
 25 
 
26 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 nature marches to support the Golden Rule. 
 We will boldly begin with the profession of 
 the minister, because I believe, 
 
 What kind of . i • . , 
 
 ministers the SO far from its bcmg^ exceptional, 
 
 world wants. . . . ^ ^ , 
 
 It IS typical of the trades and 
 professions. He alone is truly a minister who 
 stands to give the utmost possible service to 
 his fellows. I maintain that the world is ex- 
 tremely appreciative of this kind of ministry. 
 Why was the land full of praise for Dr. Park- 
 hurst, or a little before for Dr. Brooks, ex- 
 cept that men desire nothing so much as to 
 see the working of the spirit of the Golden 
 Rule? 
 
 We pass, with the sense of scarcely a shade 
 of difference of purpose, into the great de- 
 partment of education. You are 
 The teachers, about to choose a tcachcr for your 
 kindergarten, a master for your 
 high school, a president for your college. 
 What kind of a candidate will you choose ? 
 Surely not any selfish or mercenary person. 
 Your teachers, the educators of your chil- 
 dren, must steer their lives by the Golden 
 Rule. Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, or President 
 Mark Hopkins, is the type of the man whom 
 the world puts in the front rank among 
 teachers. 
 
The Golden Rule and Nature. 27 
 
 What shall we say now of the physicians 
 whom we delight to honor ? We want science, 
 skill, experience in our physician, 
 but we want something more. We physSfan. 
 are afraid of a selfish and sordid 
 man in the sick room. We want humanity, 
 friendliness, a generous heart. In the best 
 sense of the word, we want our physician to 
 be a religious man, that is, a man of faith, 
 hope, love. No one doubts that here is the 
 ideal of the good physician. 
 
 Let us turn to the authors, the artists, 
 the musicians, and see if the Golden Rule 
 will hurt or help their art. I hold 
 that art is truth, and the Golden J^j^sS^^^ 
 Rule marches with truth. Art is 
 beauty and the Golden Rule works toward the 
 highest beauty. The great writers and poets 
 have been eloquent in proportion as their 
 hearts have been warm with humanity. Dante, 
 Shakspeare, Milton, Browning, our own 
 Lowell, Longfellow, and Whittier, have sung 
 the praise of devotion and love. The great 
 artists, Michael Angelo or Millet, have not 
 dared, for cheap praise or for hire, to wrong 
 the truth of their art. The great composers 
 like Bach and Beethoven have put the human 
 soul into their music. I do not claim that all 
 
28 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 these men have been unselfish, but I claim 
 that their best strength comes from their truth, 
 their sincerity, their steadfastness, their sym- 
 pathies. The masters never needed to be 
 selfish, to push, or to scramble in order to 
 win their renown. 
 
 Let us descend nearer to the great average 
 
 life of mankind and see whether the Golden 
 
 Rule will hurt or help a mechanic, 
 
 The kind of , . . ^ . _,_' 
 
 artisans a machmist, an engmeer. We 
 
 we all want. i t i 11 
 
 are told that the large employers 
 cannot obtain enough skilled and trustworthy 
 men. Other things being equal, the men 
 who work by the standard of the Golden 
 Rule actually command the highest wages in 
 the market. Every one wants to be served 
 by such men. 
 
 The same thing obviously holds good of 
 the multitude of farmers. Here is a farmer 
 
 who aims to do the least possible 
 The farmers, for his land, for his cattle and 
 
 horses, for his neighbors, for his 
 customers, and he wishes to get the most that 
 he can for himself. Alongside of him is the 
 man who gives honest and friendly measure 
 to every one, who tends his land and loves 
 his creatures. Which farmer, other things 
 being equal, will succeed? The practice 
 
The Golden Rule and Nature. 29 
 
 of the Golden Rule will work every time. 
 Come now to the great army of labor, and 
 see whether the Golden Rule, or selfishness 
 stands in the way of the pros- 
 
 . Labor and 
 
 perity of the workers. Is it ever the Golden 
 
 ^ . . . - . , Rule. 
 
 agamst the interests of the work- 
 ingman, that he gives such faithful and 
 friendly service as he would wish to have an- 
 other render him ? Does any one imagine, 
 if the whole force of a factory were to act 
 like Christians — in other words, were to do 
 their work like true and brotherly men — that 
 they would lose in wages, appreciation, con- 
 tentment, happiness, or anything else ? 
 
 About the great mass of women's work we 
 are perfectly sure. The larger part of it is 
 done in households where, as we 
 have seen, the essential condition ooMen ifuie 
 of any degree of comfort is in women'swork. 
 the good temper of the inmates 
 of the home. For all domestic situations 
 there do not begin to be willing, cheerful, 
 and friendly women to meet the demand. In 
 other words, there is not a worker any- 
 where with whom the adoption of the Golden 
 Rule does not signify a distinct, and often a 
 very large, increase of value. The Golden 
 Rule is founded in nature. It opens the 
 
3© The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 flood-gates of new power, insight, and life. 
 
 We will make bold now to advance larger 
 
 claims for the working of the Golden Rule. 
 
 We hold that it will work in that 
 
 men we want most difficult department of human 
 
 in politics. . tTr i 
 
 life, politics. We have here con- 
 spicuous examples. Why does Washington 
 stand at the head of our list of illustrious 
 men ? It is because he used his high place 
 for the good of the people. In the Christian 
 sense of the word, he was a great minister. 
 Lincoln and Garfield were great for the same 
 reason. Everywhere the country cries out 
 for such men as these. Only these have any 
 worthy memorial. Small and selfish men are 
 blind not to see these things. What Jesus 
 said begins already to be true, namely, that 
 the meek — that is, those who do not seek 
 their own ends, office, or emolument — "shall 
 inherit the earth. ' ' Yes, shall hold the of- 
 fices and wield the power ! For thus the 
 facts prophesy. 
 
 It is with these human relations as it is 
 with boys in their games. It may be that 
 
 the boys who cheat and break the 
 VmpiV?^"^^ rules of the game seem for a 
 
 while to succeed. But the um- 
 pires are watching, and if there were no um- 
 
The Golden Rule and Nature. 31 
 
 pires, the boys themselves have no real 
 respect except for skill and fair play. So 
 the Eternal Umpire presides over human 
 affairs; no evil thing can prosper; no honest 
 effort is unseen or lost. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE GOLDEN RULE AND TRADE. 
 
 Can we take one farther step and claim 
 that the Golden Rule will work in the mer- 
 cantile world? There are those 
 ^theprTsInt^ who Say that the ruling concep- 
 tSde? °^ tions of trade are foreign to the 
 genius of Christianity, or even of 
 human brotherhood. Trade proceeds by 
 competition. It buys in the cheapest market 
 and sells in the dearest. It stands between 
 the producer and consumer, and gets what 
 it can out of each. As long as trade is a 
 species of struggle, as long as the present 
 mercantile and industrial system holds, men 
 say, you cannot buy and sell by the Golden 
 Rule. You must first alter the system of the 
 world. If these things are so, no true and 
 friendly man can remain in mercantile busi- 
 ness. I cannot be bidden to do false or 
 hurtful acts to my neighbors. I cannot send 
 my sons to learn a business in which they 
 must cheat and take mean advantage. Surely 
 
 32 
 
The Golden Rule and Trade, 33 
 
 there are other places of work to be found 
 in the great world, where we may live with- 
 out tripping up and crowding to the wall our 
 weaker brothers, or scrambling disgracefully 
 to get the highest seats at the table. 
 
 Let us first, however, see if the present 
 mercantile system itself is wrong, or is it pos- 
 sible that the wrong is in the men 
 who manage it ? It is certain that g^^^n ^""^^^ 
 a large part of all trade must run 
 close to the lines of the Golden Rule. I 
 mean that trade, upon the whole, is for the 
 one net object of human service. It is for 
 the good of all of us that merchants bring 
 flour from Dakota and rice from the sea- 
 islands. It is for good, and not mischief, 
 that they fill their stores with costly mer- 
 chandise. If I deal with them, it is because, 
 in at least nine cases out of ten, I am meas- 
 urably satisfied with my bargain. 
 
 Moreover — a remarkable fact — in nearly 
 every branch of trade I know certain dealers 
 in whose friendly service I have 
 solid confidence. In every city uke^t^tSSe. 
 there are establishments upon the 
 good faith of which one can rely. When- 
 ever a business house has a generous reputa- 
 tion people like to go there to trade. Can it 
 
34 I'h^ Golden Rule in Business, 
 
 be unprofitable to the merchant that he makes 
 his neighbors trust, respect, and love him? 
 The Golden Rule tends to this precise end. 
 On the contrary, he who violates the Golden 
 Rule in his dealings rouses our suspicions, 
 and either repels men's trade or sets them at 
 work " to be even ' ' with him. 
 
 My point here is that the great bulk of 
 
 mercantile transactions has to be reasonably 
 
 near the lines of justice and of 
 
 The lines of human scrvicc. The margin of 
 
 justice and hu- . 
 
 man service, dishonesty IS somewhat narrow 
 and dangerous. The Golden Rule, 
 aiming at the utmost human welfare, is so 
 deep in nature that it commands a sort of 
 conformity, long before men have fairly caught 
 its spirit. It is possible, if all the men in 
 New York to-morrow adopted the Golden 
 Rule that the figures of prices, values, and 
 profits might not have to undergo very great 
 change. It is likely that the services of few 
 of us are worth to the world much more than 
 we get. The adoption of the Golden Rule 
 would lessen great sources of waste ; it would 
 increase the grand product out of which we 
 all live ; it would correct certain sad abuses 
 and injustices ; but its chief gain would be on 
 the side of our humanity, in the quickened 
 
The Golden Rule and Trade. 35 
 
 sense of our brotherhood, lifting the ordinary- 
 relations of trade to the same level with the 
 ministrations of the teacher, the physician, 
 the poet and artist, the friend and the patriot. 
 What shall we say of this terrible old brute 
 doctrine of competition? Is trade possible 
 without it ? I propose to translate 
 this doctrine into higher terms. Competition. 
 The competition which aggrieves 
 us is that which seeks its gain at another's 
 loss. You have this at its extreme in all 
 kinds of gambling, whether in the lottery or 
 in the stock and produce exchanges. You 
 have it in the extortions of the ordinary pawn- 
 shop. In this kind of competition the weight 
 of the effort is to get. But suppose the 
 emphasis is changed, and the effort is to give, 
 to accomplish a benefit, to do a service ? Sup- 
 pose that the aim in the school-room is not a 
 prize, which only one can have, but the aim 
 is the mark of excellence, which all may win 
 if they please ? What if the farmer tries for 
 the largest product and highest quality of 
 fruit, the manufacturer aims at turning out 
 goods of standard perfection, the carpenter 
 takes honest delight in the thoroughness of 
 his workmanship, the merchant exerts him- 
 self to treat his customers handsomely ? Here 
 
36 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 is no longer a reckless and brutal struggle to 
 crowd others to the wall. It is a friendly- 
 emulation, worthy of men. Its success is not 
 at others' loss, but for the enrichment of all. 
 This is precisely the application of the Golden 
 Rule to trade as we have seen it applied in 
 noble homes. We are surely very unfortu- 
 nate in our business acquaintances if we have 
 not actually seen those who thus successfully 
 translated the competitive struggle into the 
 highest human terms of honest and friendly 
 service. 
 
 I am reminded of that stern law of trade, to 
 * * buy in the cheapest market and to sell in the 
 dearest. ' * Can this be translated 
 " sup^S; and into the terms of the Golden Rule ? 
 fransiafed. ^ct US scc if there is anything in- 
 trinsically selfish in this ' ' law of 
 supply and demand." Men are now mostly 
 selfish in using this law ; let us show them 
 how to use it with intelligent humanity. 
 Where is the cheapest market for corn or 
 cotton ? It is where the supply is largest, and 
 where presumably the farmer wants to ex- 
 change his product for money. And where 
 is the dearest market? It is in the city or at 
 the factory, where he will confer a favor who 
 provides a supply. The Golden Rule surely 
 
The Golden Rule and Trade. 37 
 
 does not forbid a good man from bringing 
 the supply to meet the need. What the 
 Golden Rule requires is the attitude of a 
 friend, who gives cheerfully as much as he 
 can afford. The bargain that brings the 
 needs of the buyer and seller together must 
 aim to benefit both parties. The Golden 
 Rule might not alter the terms of the bargain, 
 but it would make men's eyes thoughtful to 
 see the other's side in the bargain. Selfish 
 men in a bargain are each suspiciously seek- 
 ing to get advantage away from the other ; 
 friendly men seek to benefit each other. In 
 each case the somewhat narrow margin, within 
 which they adjust their prices, is the same. 
 Thus when a farmer brings potatoes into the 
 city, the buyer can hardly afford to give sixty 
 cents a bushel. The farmer can hardly afford 
 to sell for fifty cents. They agree upon fifty- 
 five cents. If they are selfish men, they part, 
 each grudging the other his advantage. If 
 they are friendly men, they are happy in hav- 
 ing shared a mutual benefit. 
 
 Yes, some one replies, but the present in- 
 dustrial system puts human labor 
 
 1 t • A iTT-ii 1 The Golden 
 
 under this stern law. Will the Rule in "the 
 
 >r^ 1 1 T^ 1 1 1 11 • labor market." 
 
 Golden Rule let us buy labor in 
 
 the cheapest market ? Where is the cheapest 
 
38 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 labor market ? It is where unfortunate men 
 are unemployed. There can be no wrong 
 in employing them. The wrong is in being 
 blind to their humanity. The wrong is in 
 taking advantage of their necessity. 
 
 The Golden Rule is often expected to work 
 
 a physical miracle, and make something out 
 
 of nothing. If a thousand men, 
 
 Things which . . ^ 
 
 we must not workmg grudgmgly, only pro- 
 duce a thousand dollars' worth in 
 a day, the Golden Rule cannot find means 
 for the most generous employer to pay them 
 each a dollar and a half. In other words, 
 the Golden Rule cannot give a man more 
 than the value of what he really produces. 
 
 It must be admitted, nevertheless, that 
 great wrongs are wrought under the present 
 industrial system. It is easy to 
 JSent in^duJ- paint them in lurid colors. There 
 and how their ^rc glaring inequalities. There are 
 come™"^' those whosc immense luxuries, 
 drawn from unjust monopolies, 
 are borne at the common expense. I have 
 tried to suggest that, deep down beneath the 
 present system, below men's ordinary con- 
 sciousness, the principle of the Golden Rule 
 founded in nature is slowly at work, urging 
 men into closer cooperation and bringing 
 
The Golden Rule and Trade, 39 
 
 hurtful methods to naught. The cure for 
 the evils that distress us is certainly not in 
 selfishness, standing aloof in envy and anger, 
 or smashing the costly and delicate machinery 
 of the world's industry. The cure is not in 
 shirking or scamping one's work and cutting 
 at the great aggregate product. The cure is 
 not in snatching from the gains of others, or 
 trying to live out of the public purse. The 
 only cure is in owning the Golden Rule, even 
 while others disown it, and in helping to 
 make it work. As sure as this is God's 
 world, it will and must work. As sure as 
 we are God's children, we shall have no 
 peace or satisfaction till we make it work. 
 And if, as some think, a better system of 
 human society is coming, it can only come 
 as the expression of the will of a people 
 whose hearts have been possessed with the 
 spirit of the Golden Rule. Convert men 
 to-day to live by this rule and labor troubles 
 will cease, strikes will no more be heard of, 
 exacting monopolies will disappear, the inter- 
 est rate of money, rents, and taxes will de- 
 cline, unused land will be opened to use, the 
 aggregate product of all good things will be 
 enlarged, and every one will have an ampler 
 share, with leisure enough to enjoy it. 
 
V. 
 
 THE GOLDEN RULE AS A VENTURE. 
 
 Perhaps no one will be so skeptical as to 
 deny the conclusion of the last chapter. Yes, 
 
 men say, the Golden Rule will 
 «jf?r"^^® work if every one will keep it. 
 
 It will work under favorable con- 
 ditions, as, for instance, in dealings with our 
 friends. The trouble is that the world is full 
 of people who do not pretend to keep the 
 Golden Rule, and against whose greed and 
 selfishness we have to stand on guard. 
 
 I am overwhelmed at once with a chorus 
 of objections and excuses. The merchant 
 
 tells me frankly that he must 
 best'poiky?^ sometimes break the Golden 
 
 Rule, like other merchants, or he 
 will starve. The manufacturer says that he 
 cannot keep the Golden Rule while other 
 manufacturers break it. If his workmen try 
 to beat him out of his profits, he must in 
 self-defense beat down their wages. There 
 are men who cheat in their work. The mas- 
 
 40 
 
The Golden Rule as a Venture. 41 
 
 ter must fight them, if not with cheating, at 
 least with fines, suspicions, espionage. The 
 brutal spirit voices itself in the professions. 
 We must get a living, men say, by doing as 
 others do. We must mix a grain of humbug 
 in our medicines, we must try to make the 
 worse appear the better reason. You must 
 keep on the side of your bread and butter, 
 says the subtle tempter to the minister. You 
 owe your first duty in this rude world to 
 your family. Even kindly women are caught 
 by the popular voice. It is no use, they say, 
 to be generous to the girls in the kitchen. 
 They do not thank us for our kindnesses. 
 And the cooks and the maids answer backj 
 We never get any thanks for keeping the 
 Golden Rule. What a mercenary world it 
 still is, when kind women grudge their kind- 
 ness, unless they are paid in thanks ! 
 
 In the face of these eager complaints I am 
 bound to make certain concessions. I do 
 not pretend that thorough work- 
 manship, though cheapest and of^JentSI?^ 
 best in the end, Is not somewhat 
 costly at the start. Perhaps only the skilled 
 engineer sees at first why so much work must 
 be sunk out of sight for the foundations of 
 the bridge. The engineer cannot always 
 
42 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 foresee in the new work exactly how costly 
 it may prove, or what unexpected difficulties 
 may need to be overcome. This fact of our 
 human short-sightedness about great or new 
 undertakings makes what we call the element 
 of venture. It is a very interesting element, 
 which gives zest to enterprise and color to 
 hope. I must concede that the way of the 
 Golden Rule, especially for one who begins 
 to walk in it, holds this brave element of a 
 venture. There are difficulties, there will be 
 expense, there will be discouragements. I 
 liken Jesus, with his clear sight of the laws 
 of the good life, to the skilled engineer. 
 
 I am inclined to concede at once that, if 
 
 success is in making money, the man who 
 
 keeps the Golden Rule will rarely 
 
 A concession ■' 
 
 about money- make or keep so much money as 
 
 making. * . •' 
 
 that more cautious or less gener- 
 ous man, who only does ''as the others do." 
 We will grant that few millionaire fortunes 
 can be made by the men of the Golden Rule. 
 We will concede, also, that there may be 
 
 occasions where the Golden Rule 
 
 About bad 
 
 kinds of would drive a man out of his 
 
 business. 
 
 present busmess, as Zacchaeus 
 was probably driven out of his publican's 
 office. What can a true man do, if he dis- 
 
The Golden Rule as a Venture. 43 
 
 covers that his business is of no real use to 
 human society ? And there are such kinds 
 of business ! What can a true man do, if 
 the customs of his trade command him to 
 hush his conscience, or to harden his heart, 
 as the slave trade did, as the liquor trade 
 largely does now? What can he do, if the 
 kind of competition in which he is involved 
 urges him to use the methods of the sweat- 
 shop against his working people? What can 
 he do, if he wakes up to find himself one of 
 the tools of a monstrous monopoly ? 
 
 The Golden Rule will also sometimes dic- 
 tate a reduction of salary or income. It 
 seems obvious, if the wages of 
 employees in a mill must be cut ^^aries!*^^ 
 down, that the higher officers 
 ought cheerfully to accept a like reduction of 
 their salaries and the stockholders to receive 
 a smaller dividend. In hard times the min- 
 ister must willingly suffer losses with his 
 people. 
 
 It is evident that thorough obedience 
 to the Golden Rule will not always be 
 popular. The rule will require 
 us to do more than others do, to unpopSarity. 
 move in advance of the great 
 body of men in our trade or profession. The 
 
44 "^^i^ Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 weapons of strife and suspicion are largely in 
 vogue. The manufacturer who ventures to 
 trust the friendly methods of the Golden 
 Rule may be called a ' * crank. ' ' The work- 
 man who tries to treat his employer as he 
 would wish to be treated will risk unpopu- 
 larity among his mates. We may have con- 
 fidence that the Golden Rule will work 
 eventual prosperity, as the men who began 
 the strife against slavery trusted in the tri- 
 umph of liberty. But the world is still shy 
 of changing its barbarous habits, and we who 
 believe in the Golden Rule must make up 
 our minds, like all pioneers, to be for a while 
 in the minority. The Great Engineer' s plan 
 will doubtless be cheapest and best, but it is 
 only the few at first who willingly face his 
 careful figures. Did he ever promise that 
 those who follow him should suffer no disap- 
 pointment? 
 
 We come to the practical question which 
 
 the timid will always be asking: Shall we be 
 
 , , sure of a living if we take this 
 
 Nevertheless, . 
 
 it is safe to magnificent venture? Will not 
 
 do right. * 
 
 our families suffer? Can we edu- 
 cate our children on the income that the 
 Golden Rule will leave us? It is evident 
 that from the time of Jesus down to our own 
 
The Golden Rule as a Venture. 45 
 
 Civil War, the way of the Golden Rule has 
 often led to poverty, imprisonment, and 
 death. Nevertheless, the sufferings of the 
 martyrs have already purchased such an ad- 
 vance in humanity that no one who reads 
 these words is likely really to starve for his 
 devotion to duty ! Neither do I believe that 
 the children of those who prefer to remain 
 poor rather than to do unrighteous things, 
 will suffer in all that makes true education, 
 in comparison with the children of him who 
 has made his money by craft, the wrecking 
 of railroads, the bribing of legislators. As I 
 shall presently show, education is wrong 
 that makes children think that the values of 
 life are in eating and drinking, or lets them 
 forget the eternal laws that bind society. 
 
 I might go farther and urge again, what I 
 have shown in a previous chapter, that in 
 many practical directions ' ' sfodli- 
 
 \, , . . , Theadvan- 
 
 ness — that is, righteousness, tage of doing 
 
 truth, friendliness — has ** promise 
 
 of the life that now is." All things go to 
 
 show that human progress moves in this 
 
 direction. 
 
 I do not care, however, to prove in ad- 
 vance that the Golden Rule will always work 
 to one's immediate material advantage. The 
 
46 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 great new investments of each age emerge 
 out of a cloud of some uncer- 
 cStainty'? taiuty. All the men and women 
 who have ever done memorable 
 things, or lived the noble lives whose mem- 
 ories we are proud to inherit, have taken 
 ventures for truth, justice, liberty, love, 
 humanity. Our religion itself is such a 
 glorious venture. You can make no demon- 
 stration of its truth in advance that will sat- 
 isfy a coward or an egotist. It rests, indeed, 
 on great and ever- increasingly obvious facts 
 of the moral universe. To the trained en- 
 gineer's eye its conclusions are irresistible. 
 But to each individual the entrance upon it 
 remains an act of faith. To do merely what 
 is safe, what pays, what gives immediate sat- 
 isfaction, requires no faith nor courage, nor 
 even intelligence. To do the new and higher 
 thing, the lines of which run into the infinite 
 distance, is ever the call of religion. Faith 
 predicts that it will be well, but the man has 
 to wait to see. This is the condition of his 
 finiteness. It is only at his highest moments, 
 bought by obedience to the heavenly visions, 
 that he catches glimpses of the eternal cer- 
 titudes. 
 
VI. 
 
 WHAT MAKES SUCCESS. 
 
 I HASTEN to clear up a certain doubtful 
 ground. The doubt is as to what makes human 
 success. It is commonly assumed 
 that success is measured by what Jviigf ^^^ 
 one gets. It is in amassing means, 
 money, goods. It is in luxurious living ; it 
 is in winning position and office ; it is in be- 
 ing indulged, served, praised. It is no won- 
 der that children think so. We have seen 
 that it is not so in the home. The grown 
 man soon finds that all kinds of success in 
 getting fail to bring satisfaction. The larger 
 the nature or size of the personality the 
 more signal the man's failure. It is here that 
 Jesus' radical teaching proves to be truth, 
 not for another world, but for this world. 
 Jesus never says that getting is of no use, but 
 he lays the emphasis on the other and neg- 
 lected side of life. The law of the individual 
 life, says he, is to give rather than to get. 
 The business of the vein or the artery is to 
 
 47 
 
48 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 pour the blood through, to distribute nour- 
 ishment for the body. Thus the artery gets 
 its own growth ; the more it gives the more 
 it shall have. In short, the law of its getting 
 is to give. So with each individual man. 
 Does he wish to be large, rich, full ? Let him 
 not then seek for himself to be ministered 
 unto, but let him become the largest possible 
 minister to the life of mankind. The world 
 does not so much exist for him as he exists 
 for the world. Let him do his best for the 
 world, and let him not doubt that the Lord 
 of the world will thus do the best for him. 
 
 It is interesting to observe that the bodily 
 health responds at once to this deeper moral 
 
 condition. There is nothing so 
 The law of rasping to the health as all kinds 
 
 of selfish anxiety. Jealousy, envy, 
 suspicion, as well as self-indulgence, sap the 
 springs of life and set ajar the nervous bal- 
 ance. It is not work that hurts, so much as 
 the frustration of work that has no worthy 
 aim. This waste of life, this nervous strain 
 is saved, when we accept the law that makes 
 us simply ministers of the great Good- Will." 
 We are now under orders of conscience, of 
 truth, of love. We hold all that we possess 
 in trust. We have only to do what the 
 
Wkat Makes Success. 49 
 
 Good-Will bids. Further care we have none. 
 Friction and worriment are reduced to a 
 minimum. Our lives have become parallel 
 with the motion of the life forces of the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 Jesus' own life was the exemplification of 
 this principle. His life was large, rich, full. 
 Who saw more of the beauty of 
 this world? Who rejoiced more ^cceeled.^'"' 
 in the love of his friends ? Who 
 had a more joyous hope to buoy up his 
 heart, that all would be well ? Who in his 
 time was better educated than this carpen- 
 ter's son, who saw the deeper, though quite 
 simple, meanings of existence ? If the Golden 
 Rule worked his death a little earlier than 
 Herod's or Pilate's, it first gave him the 
 sweetest enjoyment of life that man had ever 
 possessed. 
 
 The truth is, that real life is in the activity 
 of every part and function that makes the 
 whole man. It is as though a 
 stream of divine health were cours- manhoS*^^'^ 
 ing through one ; the nerves 
 tingle with zest ; the mind is quick ; the 
 heart is warm ; faith treads its brave ventures 
 with firm foot. The man is at his full height 
 when, like Jesus, body and mind give them- 
 
50 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 selves with free abandon to carry the mes- 
 sages and do the service of love. 
 
 We are already accumulating a memorable 
 array of instances to show that Jesus' idea of 
 
 success is simply the normal rule, 
 The appeal to to which all men who want real 
 
 life must conform. Who that has 
 heard of General Armstrong's work for the 
 blacks at Hampton, or Mr. Brace's work for 
 the neglected children of New York, can 
 doubt that the most absolute consecration to 
 the spirit of the Golden Rule brought these 
 men the highest possible joy. Others might 
 have deemed their lives a sacrifice upon the 
 altar of a stern duty. They would have re- 
 plied that such persons did not know what 
 life was. We are poor if we do not number 
 among our friends those who have made 
 similar trial of the new life, to which the 
 Golden Rule is the portal. If in any real 
 sense this is God's world and we are his chil- 
 dren, the Golden Rule is the only conceivable 
 way through which the divine life can flow 
 into the soul. Break the rule and you check 
 the flow of the life. Surely, then, it is false 
 education that teaches however many other 
 things, but fails to teach the eternal rule, 
 whereby life is renewed and made to grow rich. 
 
VII. 
 
 THE GOLDEN RULE IN ORGANIZATION. 
 
 I HAVE SO far assumed that it was only- 
 necessary to persuade individuals to trust 
 Jesus' teaching, and like him to 
 accept the Golden Rule as the oftheindi- 
 
 , --.,.- -iiT'i T vidual. 
 
 law of their life. Neither can I 
 doubt that it is with the individual in every 
 case that our rule must first win its way. But 
 the complicated conditions of our modern 
 life offer many grave difficulties. Not only 
 the individual workman, but the employer 
 also is often caught in the coil of a vast in- 
 dustrial system, from which he does not know 
 how to escape. What can he do alone, 
 though with the attitude of the Golden Rule, 
 in the face of the pitiless competition of the 
 unscrupulous, or of a labor market crowded 
 with emigrants, scrambling for the lowest 
 American wages ? 
 
 Moreover, the whole tendency of civiliza- 
 tion is toward closer and vaster forms of com- 
 bination. We have already traced a law, that 
 
 51 
 
52 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 the individual gets the most and best for 
 himself, as he learns to e^ive the 
 
 The trend of , ^ .. . 
 
 modern civiii- utmost to Others. Cooperation 
 is the mode by which the activity 
 of all is brought to effectiveness. The growth 
 in combination is really a growth in humanity. 
 But the older barbarous ideas still largely sur- 
 vive. The great combinations are organized 
 to fight, and not yet fairly to serve, or they 
 serve by the working of the deeper law, in 
 spite of the selfish purpose of the men who 
 direct them. The employers combine in 
 self-defense and establish corporations and 
 trusts. Sometimes they seem to unite out of 
 sheer selfishness. The workingmen of dif- 
 ferent trades combine likewise into unions, 
 and even try to federate their unions together 
 and to mass all the labor of a nation into an 
 industrial army. They propose to keep 
 even with the capitalist and to wrest from him 
 a fairer share of the joint product. They 
 propose to legislate against his legislation and 
 to alter the laws. Some promise to go fur- 
 ther and to inaugurate a new system of 
 society. 
 
 There does not seem to be much of the 
 Golden Rule in these great combinations. 
 There is much evident bitterness. It is strife 
 
The Golden Rule in Organization, 53 
 
 of the selfish against the selfish. Neverthe- 
 less, beneath the surface a new 
 principle slowly makes headway. J^tionTwork. 
 Selfishness, like injustice, is a dis- 
 integrating force. It has to unload somewhat 
 of its weight in order to enter into any com- 
 bination. At least within its own group or 
 union it must keep the form of the Golden 
 Rule or go down. Even in the most danger- 
 ous combination of greedy capital, there is 
 deference to the growing public opinion of 
 the nation and a fear of the laws through 
 which this public opinion will surely shatter 
 any conspiracy of the few against the good 
 of the many. 
 
 Especially in the labor unions the Golden 
 Rule binds the members among themselves 
 with an ever-deepeniner hold. 
 
 , 1- & ^ What holds 
 
 Men and women are seen sacri- labor unions 
 ficing their immediate and per- 
 sonal interests, losing wages and risking 
 starvation, for what they deem the good of 
 their brotherhood. Whether they are always 
 wise or not, the spirit is often precisely the 
 same as that which gave the early Christian 
 Church its headway in the teeth of persecu- 
 tion. 
 
 There is, however, a class of combinations 
 
54 ^he Golden Rule i7i Business. 
 
 to-day such as the world never before saw which 
 are almost purely the outgrowth of 
 «Sii?o„s5 the Golden Rule. They are the 
 various friendly, philanthropic, 
 educational, patriotic, humane, and missionary 
 organizations. Individuals possessed with 
 the purpose of the Golden Rule join hands 
 simply to give of their labor or their means 
 to cure human evils and relieve needs. Thus 
 the various temperance societies stand for the 
 desire of a multitude of people to forego per- 
 sonal indulgence for the sake of the greater 
 good. The movements for purer govern- 
 ment, such as the effort for civil service re- 
 form, represent the will of individuals like 
 the distinguished editor, George William 
 Curtis, to devote themselves to public service. 
 We have the clue to understand how the 
 spirit of the Golden Rule is likely to work 
 
 relief from the great and threaten- 
 How the good . • 1 1/- 1 
 will overcome mg" eiiorts oi orpfauized seliisn- 
 
 thebad. ,,r i ^ r 
 
 ness. We do not need first to 
 convert all men to the principle of the Golden 
 Rule. We shall meet bad organizations with 
 better and stronger ones. In some instances 
 we shall capture the old organizations with 
 the new temper. The men of the Golden 
 Rule in a mercantile corporation will make 
 
The Golden Rule in Organization. 55 
 
 their joint influence felt to change injurious 
 methods, to do justice toward employees, to 
 alter a selfish attitude to a friendly one. The 
 men of the Golden Rule in a labor union will 
 unite to require the use of only righteous 
 means to right their wrongs. They will in- 
 sist that employers and capitalists are also 
 men like themselves. There will be new or- 
 ganizations directly governed by the Golden 
 Rule. If the competition of the reckless 
 grinds downwards, if the land laws that fitted 
 a pioneer age cease to fit our crowded popu- 
 lation and make worse inequalities, if wealth 
 concentrated in a few hands means degrada- 
 tion of the people, the Golden Rule will not 
 only bind individuals to protest against the 
 evil, but to band themselves together and to 
 discover means to change the evil to good. 
 
 It must be remembered that there is no 
 
 binding power in organization so great as the 
 
 Golden Rule. While selfishness 
 
 The binding ...... ,. 
 
 power of With its jcalousies Splits men 
 
 friendliness. _ . ... 
 
 apart, friendliness unites them. 
 A few men bound with this kind of tie, 
 like the Macedonian phalanx, will work won- 
 ders. All the great reforms are a witness of 
 the superb power of the devoted few. The 
 success of the Golden Rule in organization 
 
56 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 on a large scale has not yet even been tried. 
 Moreover, the characteristic method of the 
 Golden Rule is profound, subtle, and marvel- 
 ously effective. It does not fight 
 lY^I^^^''^ evil with evil, hatred with hatred, 
 wrong by doing an opposite 
 wrong. It fights evil with good, by persua- 
 sion, by fairness, by good temper, by expect- 
 ing the best of men instead of their worst. 
 As in the story of the traveler's cloak, it does 
 not, like the north wind, drive the man to 
 fold himself more closely about, but it acts 
 like the genial sun to make him take off the 
 cloak of his selfishness. This method is yet 
 quite new in the world. But those who have 
 experimented and watched its working look 
 for developments in it as great and rapid as we 
 already have seen in the material world by the 
 application of the new powers of steam and 
 electricity. 
 
 We rise to a better conception of the 
 meaning and office of the church. Grant 
 that the true church is made up of 
 JAhS^churchf "^^^ ^'^^ women who unite to ex- 
 press **the faith of Jesus Christ." 
 And what is the faith of Jesus ? Jesus' faith 
 surely was, that this is not the devil's world, 
 not a material world, not an agnostic 
 
The Golden Rule in Organization. 57 
 
 world of which man can know nothing, but 
 it is God's world. Jesus' faith was in the 
 Golden Rule, that it would work, that 
 whoever would trust it the Eternal Love 
 would support. Jesus sealed this intensely- 
 practical faith with his life and his death. 
 Those who looked on cried out, * ' We told 
 you so. The Golden Rule is brought to 
 naught." On the contrary, Jesus' death 
 proved to usher in the dawn of a new era 
 of human progress. We have henceforward 
 the key to understand history. All history 
 is the constant march of the forces that bring 
 the Golden Rule to triumph, the defeat of 
 every short-lived scheme, policy, industrial 
 system, or political government that thwarts 
 the growing good of man. 
 
 Whatever significance the church has had 
 in the past has been in the fact that under- 
 neath its gigantic establishments 
 has been hidden the vital germ •[ has bee? ^^ 
 of this spirit of brotherhood. But ^^ttmuSb? 
 hitherto the good spirit has been 
 mainly in the hearts of individuals. The or- 
 ganization has rarely expressed the Christian 
 spirit, but it has expressed almost everything 
 else, men's ambition, their avarice, their 
 superstitions, their speculations. The church 
 
58 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 has never tried to see what it could do as an 
 organized effort to bring the Golden Rule 
 into effect, to spread its sway, to persuade 
 men to adopt it. 
 
 To-day the world is getting ready to judge 
 the church by this test and no other. Does 
 the church make men friends? 
 ^obiTtes"!* Do the men and women of the 
 church conduct their business, 
 their farms, shops, railroads, and factories in 
 the spirit of friendliness, that is, in the spirit 
 of Christ ? Do they bring up their children 
 to take the Golden Rule as the law of their 
 lives ? Is this the end of their Sunday-school 
 training, and is that Sunday-school alone 
 thought to be a success which commits its 
 youth to the brave and noble ventures of the 
 Golden Rule? In short, does the church 
 head the organized forward movement of 
 mankind toward a Christian civilization ? 
 
 How can we believe in God unless we keep 
 the chief law of his kingdom ? The Great 
 Engineer shows us the plan of the 
 b^ a^ChriltSn. bridge that binds earth and heaven 
 together. He lays down the law 
 of the bridge. He trusts the weight of his 
 life to it. Shall we dare to call ourselves 
 Christians and not do the same ? 
 
QUESTIONS. 
 
 What parables of Jesus show what he thought 
 of those who held the theory of the good life with- 
 out the practice? Matt. 21:28-32; 25:31-46; Mark 
 4:3-8, 15-20. 
 
 Can any one evade the laws of the universe in 
 chemistry, in farming, in building ? Give illustra- 
 tions. Of what is the outward universe a grand 
 parable ? 
 
 Do you believe that the Golden Rule is binding 
 on all men ? Do you think that any one can afford 
 to break it ? Show how to deny this is to doubt 
 that this is God's world. 
 
 Where do you first find the Golden Rule ? Lev. 
 19:18. Where does Jesus lay it down? Matt. 
 7:12 ; 22:39. What did Jesus do with this rule, 
 besides teaching it ? 
 
 What, besides obedience, does one need in or- 
 der to keep the Golden Rule ? Illustrate the need 
 of judgment, etc. Show the same need in keep- 
 ing other laws, as for instance, in building. 
 
 What difficult passages can you find in the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount ? How do men explain away 
 Jesus' meaning? 
 
 What is the great characteristic of the Christian 
 life ? Answer. — It is a new spirit, or temper. Can 
 
 59 
 
6o The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 you put this new spirit into one form of words ? 
 How does Paul sum it up? i Cor. 13:13. Where 
 do you find another beautiful form of the same 
 thought? I John 4:7, 16, 21. What does Jesus 
 teach about the action of love? Matt. 5:43-48. 
 What does he here mean by being ** perfect"? 
 Answer. — Men usually love those that love them ; 
 but God loves and blesses all ; his children ought 
 to love as he does, with an all-round love. Show 
 how real friendliness sometimes treats the thief, 
 the tramp, the child. What does true love always 
 seek? 
 
 II. 
 
 Where do all men agree that the Golden Rule 
 works well ? Illustrate how selfishness spoils the 
 home life. Where do you find the great mottoes 
 of the home? Matt. 20:28 ; Acts 20:35 ; Phil. 2:3. 
 
 Who are those who are loved best in the home ? 
 Who seem to get most enjoyment out of the home 
 life ? Think of instances to prove your answer. 
 
 Do you think that love ought to be blind ? Why 
 not? What harm do you sometimes see from un- 
 thinking love ? 
 
 Did you ever know brothers or sisters to treat 
 each other unkindly in business matters? What 
 does the world say of such brothers ? Did you 
 ever know happiness to come to any one from such 
 treatment ? 
 
 Did you ever know a real friend to take advan- 
 tage of another? What is the rule for keeping 
 one's friends ? 
 
 What rule generally holds good among members 
 
Questions. 6i 
 
 of lodges and brotherhoods ? What code of honor 
 do you discover in the Stock Exchange ? 
 
 What do men often say in complaint of their treat- 
 ment by fellow Christians ? Is such complaint fair ? 
 What is Jesus' teaching about the relation of Chris- 
 tians to one another? John 13:35; 14:21. Can a 
 Christian explain this teaching away ? What beau- 
 tiful parable shows Jesus' idea of our common 
 humanity? Luke 10:25-38. 
 
 Of whom does " the real church " consist ? Give 
 examples. Why do not individuals of this sort 
 control the church ? Is the proportion of this sort 
 increasing ? 
 
 How far already does the Golden Rule have 
 sway in the world ? In what regions of life can we 
 not get on without it ? 
 
 III. 
 
 Is selfishness an evil thing within the animal 
 world ? What mighty principle works to counter- 
 act selfishness ? Tell any stories to illustrate the 
 working of the cooperative idea. How does Jesus' 
 life illustrate this idea ? Tell instances of persons 
 whose pleasure was in serving others. 
 
 What is your ideal of the noblest kind of min- 
 ister ? Tell something of the story of John Wes- 
 ley. Read Chaucer's description of the good 
 priest in **The Canterbury Tales." 
 
 Describe the best teacher of whom you know. 
 What qualities make a good teacher ? 
 
 Why ought a physician to be a man of the 
 Golden Rule ? Is it to a physician's disadvantage 
 to be this kind of man ? Give instances to illus- 
 trate your answer. 
 
62 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 Will artists or musicians succeed better for being 
 selfish ? Name some of the great masters in art 
 and literature. Where does their best strength 
 come from ? 
 
 What sort of mechanic or mason would you 
 choose ? Other things being equal, why would a 
 man of the Golden Rule be worth more than a 
 selfish man ? 
 
 Is it against the interest of a farmer to live by 
 the Golden Rule ? How will the rule help him ? 
 
 Give reasons to show how the keeping of the 
 Golden Rule adds value to labor. Show the 
 greater efficiency of a factory manned by genuine 
 Christians. 
 
 What type of woman would one choose as the 
 most valuable housekeeper, domestic, or nurse? 
 Give instances in your acquaintance of the invalu- 
 able quality of the work of those women who live 
 by the Golden Rule. 
 
 Name the greatest men who have ever served 
 our country. Does selfishness or patriotism make 
 men great ? What kind of men do the people ad- 
 mire most in public life ? Illustrate how ** the Be- 
 atitudes " are true to the facts of life. 
 
 Do the boys in their games really succeed who 
 break the rules of the game ? What is true suc- 
 cess in the game ? Do you think that men can 
 break the rules of life and succeed ? Who awards 
 success? Ps. 96 ; Is. 40: 26-31. 
 
 IV. 
 
 What complaints do men make of the present 
 competitive system of trade ? If this system is 
 
Questions. 63 
 
 contrary to the Golden Rule, what would a true 
 man have to do ? 
 
 What is the grand net result of most trade ? Are 
 you most injured, or served, on the whole, in the 
 bulk of your transactions ? 
 
 Do you know persons who deal on the principles 
 of the Golden Rule ? Is it a disadvantage, or an 
 advantage, to be known as one who treats his cus- 
 tomers with friendliness? Where ought a true 
 man to trade — with the untrustworthy who tempt 
 the public with "bargains," or with the honorable 
 and friendly ? 
 
 Do you believe that "all things work together 
 for good " ? What tendency of this kind can you 
 trace in the realm of business ? Do you think, if 
 all men kept the Golden Rule, that the average 
 buyer would get more than he gets now ? Would 
 the average seller get more ? How much higher 
 do you think the average wages would be ? What 
 would be the chief gain in keeping the rule ? 
 
 Show the distinction between brute competition 
 and the emulation of men. Give instances of men 
 and women who try to give the utmost service. 
 Whom did Jesus call the greatest in the new sys- 
 tem ? Luke 22:24-28. 
 
 How can you translate the law of "supply and 
 demand ' ' into beneficent terms ? What is the atti- 
 tude of selfish men in a bargain ? What is the atti- 
 tude of good men? Illustrate these different atti- 
 tudes. 
 
 There is cheap labor in the South, Is it wrong, 
 or beneficent to start factories there ? What would 
 you think if the factories made great profits, with- 
 out raising the wages of their working people ? 
 
64 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 Does the Golden Rule require any one to pay 
 more than a thing is worth ? What would be the 
 result if an employer should run his mill at a loss 
 in order to pay high wages ? 
 
 What great inequalities can you see in the pres- 
 ent industrial system? What was said of such 
 things in the Bible times? Is. 5:8; Amos 2:6; 
 3:10 ; 4:1 ; James 5:1-5. What is the cure of such 
 evils ? Can you think of any better industrial sys- 
 tem than we have now ? If so, would it keep men 
 from being selfish ? What would happen, with the 
 present system, if men would keep the Golden 
 Rule? 
 
 V. 
 
 Why are many not ready to begin to keep the 
 Golden Rule ? Will the Golden Rule work when 
 applied toward unfriendly people ? Do selfishness 
 and greed work well when shown toward such 
 people? What does Jesus say ? Matt. 5:44. 
 
 What do you think of men's excuses for break- 
 ing Jesus' rule ? Is honesty the best policy ? Is it 
 well or not to treat all men with friendliness ? 
 
 Is the best thing the cheapest ? What element 
 of venture is to be found in life ? Show how this 
 element makes life interesting. To what may we 
 liken Jesus? 
 
 Will the man who keeps the Golden Rule be 
 likely to grow rich as fast as if he sometimes broke 
 it? If not, why? 
 
 Can you think of any kinds of business out of 
 which the Golden Rule would drive a man ? Can 
 you think of methods which a true man would 
 have to stop ? 
 
Questions, 65 
 
 What ought to be done with the higher salaries 
 and the dividends in a mill, when the wages of the 
 working people are cut down ? 
 
 Name men whom the Golden Rule has required 
 to risk unpopularity. What reforms to-day involve 
 a venture for those who assist them ? What com- 
 fortable word does Jesus say to those who take 
 such risks? Matt. 5:10-11. 
 
 What costly advantages have the blood and pains 
 of the martyrs and heroes bought for our age ? 
 Is any one in our age likely to starve for obeying 
 the Golden Rule ? What was thought about this 
 in ancient times ? Ps. 37:25. What loss do chil- 
 dren suffer who are brought up by selfish parents ? 
 
 What do you think of the passage in i Tim. 
 4:8? Illustrate in answer. 
 
 Suppose the keeping of the Golden Rule proves 
 costly or dangerous ; what shall a man do about 
 it? Luke 14:25-31. Do good men ever give a 
 different answer ? What is the ** faith" of an en- 
 gineer? What is the "faith" of religion? Give 
 instances in memorable lives, for instance, Luther. 
 
 VI. 
 
 What do the thoughtless call success? What 
 opposite fact have we discovered in the home? 
 Where does Jesus put the emphasis ? Matt. 6:33. 
 What shall we call the law of success ? 
 
 How does selfishness hurt the health? How 
 does the Golden Rule take away anxiety? To 
 what office does Jesus liken a good man ? Luke 
 12:42. What is the business of a steward or 
 trustee? i Cor. 4:2. What beautiful figure is 
 
66 The Golden Rule in Business. 
 
 found in Deut. 33:27 of the support that comes to 
 the faithful sons of God ? 
 
 Show wherein Jesus' life is an example of suc- 
 cess. Note Matt. 13:44; John 14:27 ; 15:11 ; Gal. 
 5:22. 
 
 In what does full life consist ? Illustrate in the 
 case of the body. Show how that man must suf- 
 fer whose body and mind are active, but whose 
 faith, hope, and love are not exercised. 
 
 Tell instances of the men and women who have 
 tried Jesus' rule and found it to work. What hap- 
 pens to the moral and spiritual health when one 
 breaks the law ? Show how the Golden Rule is 
 the central fact of education. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Why must moral and religious work begin 
 with the individual? Illustrate the complications 
 of modern life. Is the individual always free to 
 do right ? Is he equally free to correct wrongs ? 
 
 In what direction does modern civilization move ? 
 What good does cooperation do ? For what end 
 are many combinations now organized ? 
 
 How does selfishness work in organizations? 
 What has to be mixed with selfishness in order to 
 keep organizations together? How does public 
 opinion act to overthrow dangerous combinations ? 
 
 How is the spirit of chivalry and devotion shown 
 in the trades unions ? 
 
 Name organizations that are purely for carrying 
 the Golden Rule into effect. Do you belong to 
 any such associations ? Can a man be a Christian 
 and not help in such kind of effort ? 
 
 How can bad organizations be overcome? 
 
Questions. 67 
 
 Which is the stronger, the union of the bad or 
 that of the good ? Illustrate the power of the good 
 when they combine. Tell the story of William 
 Wilberforce and the abolition of the slave trade. 
 
 What weaknesses does selfishness show in organ- 
 ization ? Is anything in the world braver or more 
 steadfast than love? See i Cor. 13:4-8. 
 
 What is the characteristic method of the New 
 Testament in fighting evil ? Rom. 12:21. Did you 
 ever know this method, when intelligently tried, 
 to fail ? Tell some story to illustrate the use of 
 this method. 
 
 How do Jesus' life and death illustrate his 
 faith in the Golden Rule ? Which has proved to 
 conquer — Pilate's and Herod's force, or Jesus' 
 love ? 
 
 What has been the great fault with the church in 
 the past? What has it failed as a body to do? 
 Do you think that Christians generally have be- 
 lieved in the religion of the Golden Rule ? Matt. 
 7:22-23. 
 
 What is doubtless the true test of the reality of 
 the church? Matt. 6:20. What is the test of the 
 usefulness of the Sunday-school ? What new and 
 nobler future do you see for the church ? 
 
 What fine passage in Eph. 4: 4-17 sets the stand- 
 ard of the good life ?