What a difference it would make if everyone should take the Golden Rule as the motto for each day, asking Christ's help in living in accordance with it! What a difference it would make in every home if father and mother and all the sons and daughters should resolve to make theirs a Golden-Rule household! The first thing necessary in bringing about such a change in the home is for one member to make the resolution and to do his best to live up to it. Others will follow inevitably when they note his careful, unselfish life and helpful acts.
There is a Jewish tradition that a Gentile came to Hillel asking to be taught the law, in a few words, while he stood on one foot. The answer was given, "Whatsoever thou wouldst that men should not do to thee, that do not thou to them." This was good, as far as it went, but there was nothing positive about it. Christ's teaching supplies the lack, showing what we are to do as well as what we are to leave undone. Christ always gives the touch required to make old teachings glow with life.
II
SUCCEEDING BY COURAGEOUS SERVICE
When John E. Clough was a student working his way through college, he was employed in a menial capacity at a hotel in a western town. His employer was absent for a season and the student was compelled to take charge of the hotel. He was successful, for he learned how to handle men of many sorts, how to provide for their comfort, how to make them feel that he was doing his best for them.
Years later, when he was a missionary in India, it became necessary for him to plan for the temporary entertainment of the men and women who came to the mission station by hundreds, and even by thousands, seeking Christian baptism. For days it was necessary to provide for their comfort. Many men would have been dismayed by the task, but to Dr. Clough the problem presented was simple; he had only to do on a large scale the very things which made his boyhood efforts at hotel-keeping such a pronounced success.
Experience in a hotel is a good course of preparation for any young man, whether he plans to be a missionary or to serve in any of the home callings that demand the Christian's time and thought. However, it is not possible for more than a very small proportion of young people to serve a period in a hotel; so it will be helpful to them to read some of the suggestions that have been made by a successful hotel proprietor. Those who heed these suggestions are apt to be successful in dealing with men and women anywhere.
It is worth while to note some of these rules:
"The hotel is operated primarily for the benefit and convenience of its guests.
"Any member of our force who lacks the intelligence to interpret the feeling of good will that this hotel holds toward its guests, cannot stay here very long.
"Snap judgments of men often are faulty. The unpretentious man with the soft voice may possess the wealth of Croesus.