It does not make so much difference whether a man is engaged in money-making or in writing poems and picturing the fair dreams of better things; the question is this, is the money-making for the sake of the money or for some high and worthy end? What is the motive that impels either the dealer in dollars or the dealer in dreams?
Our ideals, visions, aspirations, and our religion become most damaging if they fail to find expression in conduct and work; lacking the practical, they result in a character that is satisfied with contemplating the good instead of realizing it. The man who sinks his soul in dollars may personally be no worse than he who allows it to atrophy while he dreams.
Here in religion are the dynamic and the motives that bear men on and buoy them up to do the toil, bear the burdens, stand in the fight of daily living; here are the visions that lift our eyes from the desk and the machine, from profits and discounts, and help us to see the worthy prizes of life.
No man could become a saint by separating himself from this world's turmoil and reading his Bible alone; neither can any man find strength and stability for life's business and battle, find satisfaction in its service and rewards, unless he sees through its dollars and its dirt the moral ends of all this world's work.
This noisy mill of daily living may be the greatest blessing we know; it is the opportunity for the expression of our highest ideals, for the translation of religion into terms of daily living; it is the place where character is molded by its stress, its calls to the strong will, and its manifold opportunities for the service of all mankind by each man in his place.
XV
The Every-Day Heaven
The Beauty of Holiness The Gladness of Goodness The True Paradise
Self shrinks the soul.
The keen eye needs the kindly heart.