The Obedience of the Golden Rule, as it is stated in a new form: I will not do unto others that which I would not have them do to me. I will not think of others that which I would not have them think of me. I will not say of others that which I would not have them say of me.
QUESTIONS
What is a home? What is the difference in homes? What is the true home? What can be said of the ideal Christian home? Duties of husbands and wives; what are the four lines? Duties of children; what are the two lines? What are the duties of servants and dependents; of the young and aged? What can be said of the attack upon the home; the marriage relation, the quiet of the home, the purity of the body, freedom of speech? In what three ways may the home be preserved?
STUDY XI
THE CHRISTIAN BUSINESS WORLD
Scripture references: Proverbs 22:29; Romans 12:11; Psalms 24:1; 50:10-12; Haggai 2:8; Psalm 49:6,10,16,17; 62:10; Matthew 13:22; Mark 10:23,24; Job 31:24-26; Proverbs 3:9; Matthew 25:14-30; 24:45-51; 6:19-21; Luke 12:16-21.
THE IDEAL IN THE BUSINESS WORLD
There is often a wide difference between the methods actually employed in doing business and when they should be. Good men who are in the thick of the battle of competition and rivalry with other firms in the same line of trade, are the quickest to admit this fact. They would gladly see things managed so that every employee should be satisfied with his wages and hours of work and every competitor and customer gratified by the treatment he receives.
Business as a Fight.—"The truth is," says a recent eminent writer on this subject, "modern business is a fight. At bottom it is a question of strength and courage." In this fight there are all sorts of men engaged; men, who are honourable and upright and who fight fairly, taking no mean advantage, yet nevertheless fighting strongly for place, power and wealth. Over against this company of men are those who are fair only when they are compelled to be fair and who contend with any means, good or bad, for the objects which they seek to attain. It is this latter class which upsets trade, causes great commercial and banking houses to fail, and casts suspicion upon all corporations, by the sale of watered and fraudulent stocks. It is this idea of business as a struggle which causes working men to strike sometimes rightly, against great abuses, and sometimes wrongly, over minor matters which might easily have been adjusted if they had been taken up in the right way.
Business as a Service.—So long as the ideal of the business world is that business is a fight, little can be done to improve the present conditions under which capital and labour work and suffer. There is nothing which is so costly as war, nothing which is so far-reaching in its disastrous effects and which leaves such a trail of misery behind it. Industrial war is no exception to the rule.