^ I confess to you that though, like St. Paul, I desire to magnify my own office, I am often filled with deep admiration for the life and calling of a Christian man of business. His special trials and temptations are not mine; and, though a minister has his own temptations and trials, he sometimes feels, as he stands before his congregation and looks round upon them and thinks of all the struggles and defeats and victories of their daily life, like one who is standing quietly on the safe shore, while others are desperately battling with the stormy sea. I remember a morning, some years ago, when I happened to be staying with a friend in a great fishing station in the north of Scotland. A gale had sprung up suddenly, and we went down to the breakwater to watch the fleet of fishing-boats as they came running back for shelter. What admiration one felt at the way in which they breasted and buffeted the waves, and at the nerve and skill displayed by each crew in turn, as they drew near to the narrow entrance which was their one chance of escape, and shot safely at last through the harbour mouth into the quiet haven. Even such is the admiration with which one often looks upon Christian courage and consistency and victory in the life of a business man.*
^ R. W. Dale. * P. Brooks, Addresse«, 63. • J. C. Lambert.
ROMANS XII. II (AV) 271
4. Be prepared for sacrifice. — We need not believe all that the pessimists say about the conditions of success in business. We must not think that the business world is entirely organized in the interests of the devil. We must not think that honest men are sure to fail, and unscrupulous men bound to succeed. That is simply not true. At the same time, if we determine to carry Christ's law with us into all the transactions of a business career, we must be prepared for sacrifice.
If we have in the least degree entered into the spirit of that sacred life, that Divine Life, the life of Jesus Christ on earth, we shall not need to be taught that the law of sacrifice is the fundamental law of the Christian life. His whole life was a sacrifice. To come to this earth of ours, to pass through infancy and boyhood, to lead the life of a peasant, and then to be a wandering teacher and prophet, without a place where He might lay His head, and finally to go through the mockings and scourg- ings, and to die on the Cross for us — this was the consummation, as it is the perfect example, of self-sacrifice. And it is for this that men love and worship and serve Him ; by this He has put a new spirit into the world and not only has given us an example that we should follow His steps, but has proved that thus, and thus only, is the world healed and purified and taught. The law of sacrifice is supreme and binding on all Christians. It is the salvation of the world.
^ If any one says that in business one cannot be a Christian because it would involve loss to be so, I ask what right has he to expect that any special department of life, such as business, shall be exempt from the operation of a law which governs the whole. Of course it will involve at times a sacrifice and a loss to do the right thing, and I do not see how any Christian can expect anything else. The sacrifice must be made, the loss borne, as cheerfully and courageously as we should expect an officer to hear the summons to a post of danger or of death. This is the necessary correlative and consequence of regarding business as a vocation, and as an honourable service of men.^
^ If a magistrate or a policeman could carry out justice only at much personal risk and loss, we expect him to do it. If an officer or a clergyman is called to harder work and smaller pay, we expect him to undertake it. It may not be compulsory, it
1 J. M. Wilson.
272 BUSINESS
may not always be done ; but we expect it. We recognize such conduct as right, and the refusal as wrong. Now Te" oulht to regard all forms of business not only as avocation but aJstas a public service and transfer to it something of the same eeW
services
* J. M. Wilson,
Outward, Inward, Christward.
ROMANS — 18
Literature.
Brooke (S. A.), The Unity of God and Man, 155. Burrell (D. J.), A Quiver of Arrows, 158. Candlish (R. S.), Tlie Two Great Commandments, 151. Farrar (F. W.), Sin and its Conquerors, 38. Jerdan (C), Messages to the Children, 187. Jowett (J. H.), Thirsting for the Springs, 152. MacArthur (R. S.), The Calvary Pulpit, 43. Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Romans, 267.
„ „ Leaves from the Tree of Life, 63.
Percival (J.), Some Helps for School Life, 11. Rutherford (W. G.), The Key of Knowledge, 218.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xv. (1869), No. 885, Vauglian (C. J.), Doncaster Sermons, 186.
„ (D. J.), Questions of the Day, 144.
„ (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), xi. No. 870. Christian World Pulpit, xix. 5 (Beeclier) ; xxx. 185 (Horder) ; Iv. 72