When we go behind these general considerations, however, we find that this great commonwealth rests on God's enactment. When He commanded man to replenish the earth and subdue it, He issued His royal charter to business. Business means the appropriation and subjection of the world by man to himself. Beginning with agriculture, which is its simplest form, and rising through all grades of industrial and commercial activity, whatso- ever subdues the external world to man's will, and appropriates its power, its beauty, its usefulness, is business; and whoso
ROMANS XII. II (AV) 251
worthily engages in it is helping to carry out God's design, and is so far engaged in His service. To conquer the earth, and force the wild fen or stony field to bring forth bread to gladden the heart of man ; to level useless hills, and say to obstructive mountains, Be ye removed from the path of progress ; to summon the lightnings to be his messengers, and cause the viewless winds to be his servants; to bring all the earth into subjection to human will and human intelligence — this is man's earthly calling, and history is but the progressive accomplishment of it. Therefore it is that, rightly regarded, business is a department of Christian activity. Therefore it is to be said and insisted on that the worthy business of everyday life is a department of genuine Christian culture that ought to be pursued with high aims and lofty motives, not only for what it enables man to do, but chiefly for what it enables man to be in the exercise of his kingly function and in the development of his kingly character.
Now there are three aspects in which business may be considered by the follower of Christ.
1. It is a means of earning a livelihood. — In other words, it is a way of making money. Now if we consider it, we shall see that money, honestly earned, represents so much good done in the world. You produce what the world wants, and you get paid for it by those who want it. And, in that, you have done a positive good, and your profit has a moral value in it, as representing a want supplied and a fellow-man advantaged. Thus, the farmer who does his best with his fields is doing a duty not only to himself, but to his fellow-men and his God ; for his fellow-men need his corn, and God desires his services in feeding His children. The manufacturer in his mill, the merchant on the Exchange, the trader in his shop may all feel the same — that the Great Master needs fchem because the Master's world needs them, and that diligence in their several callings is not only necessary in order to earn their daily bread, but that honour and religion call upon them to lose no time, and dissipate no faculty, and squander no power.
^ I once had a clerk who, being a very dazzling genius, led me into many postal difficulties. The quantities of paper that boy went through are not to be stated without long and serious
252 BUSINESS
thought. That was, however, comparatively a trifle. The gifted youth put the letters in the wrong envelopes, and used foreign stamps for inland correspondence with a prodigal hand. This was genius. This was the noble-mindedness which soars above the mean region of details. When I sent him away, his mother complained of my being " severe," and, looking at me with large and reproachful eyes, said, in an annihilating tone, " And you a minister ! " ^
2. It is a debt to society. — It is an equivalent which we have to pay to society for our share of its advantages. Every man gets his share of the privileges of society. He gets his food three times a day ; he gets his clothes ; and he gets some kind of lodging to defend him from the wind and weather. These society has to fetch for him from afar. His tea is brought from China ; his rice from India ; the cotton he wears from America ; the timber of the roof above his head from Norway. Now, for these advantages which society confers on the individual she demands in return his day's work. If she is well satisfied with it she may give him finer clothes, finer food, finer lodging, and even add delightful extras — like a good house, wife and children, desirable friends, books, pictures, travel, and the like. But the principle is the same all through — that you must give your day's work for your share of society's advantages. Some speculators in our day hold that man has a natural right to these things. When a child is born, they maintain, it has a right to be fed, to be clothed, to be housed. Well, perhaps a child has ; but an able-bodied man has not, unless he is ready to work for them. It is the law of the Bible and the law of common sense that if any man do not work neither shall he eat.
^ It is necessary that we should be fed and clothed. Or we may put it in another way and say, God wants us to be fed and clothed. He, therefore, who helps to feed and clothe us by his skill, his labour, or his enterprise, is not only a public benefactor, but a doer of God's will. The merchant who sends his ships to bring here the produce of other lands, and to take to other lands the productions of our own, is really discharging one of the great duties of natural religion, at the same time that he is earning honourable wealth ; and, if he is successful, his profit is not only an honour- able profit, well earned and richly deserved, but it is, in a sense,