Long and earnestly he thought on the subject before building the mill. Indeed, he first prayed over it and then preached on the subject, and this is the sermon he preached to his people the Sunday before he began the erection of The Model Cotton Mill:
“Now, it's this way, my brethren: God made cotton for a mill. You can't get aroun' that; and the mill is to give people wuck an' this wuck is to clothe the worl'. That's all plain an' all good, because it's from God. Man made the bad of it—child labor, and overwuck and poor pay and the terrible everlastin' grind and foul air an' dirt an' squaller an' death.
“The trouble with the worl' to-day is that it don't carry God into business. Why should we not be kinder an' mo' liberal with each other in business matters? We are unselfish in everything but business. All social life is based on unselfishness. To charity we give of our tears an' our money. For the welfare of mankind an' the advancement of humanity you can always count us on the right side. Even to those whose characters are rotten an' whose very shadows leave dark places in life, we pass the courtesies of the hour or the palaverin' compliments of the day. But let the struggler for the bread of life come along and ask us to share our profits with him, let the dollar be the thing involved an' business shrewdness the principle at stake, an' then all charity is forgotten, every man for himse'f, an' the chief aim of man seems to be to get mo' out of the trade than his brother.
“Now the soul of trade is Selfishness, an' Charity never is invited over her doorway.
“I have known men with tears in their eyes to give to the poor one day an' rob them the nex' in usurious interest an' rent, as cheerful as they gave the day befo'. I have known men to open their purses as wide as the gates of hades for some church charity, an' then close them the nex' day, in a business transaction, as they called it—with some helpless debtor or unexperienced widder. The graveyard is full of unselfish, devoted fathers an' husbands who worked themselves to death for the comfort an' support of their own families, yet spendin' their days on earth tryin' to beat their neighbors in the same game.
“It's funny how we're livin'. It's amusin', it is—our ethics of Christianity. We've baptised everything but business. We give to the church an' rob the poor. We weep over misfortune an' steal from the unfortunate. We give a robe to Charity one day and filch it the nex'. We lay gifts at the altar of the Temple of Kindness for the Virgin therein, but if we caught her out on the highways of trade an' commerce we'd steal her an' sell her into slavery. An' after she was dead we'd go deep into our pockets to put up a monument over her!
“We weep an' rob, an' smile an' steal, an' laugh an' knife, an' wring the hand of friendship while we step on her toes with our brogans of business. Can't we be hones' without bein' selfish, fair without graspin', make a profit without wantin' it all? Is it possible that Christ's religion has gone into every nook an' corner of the worl' an' yet missed the great highway of business, the everyday road of dollars an' cents, profit an' loss!
“So I am goin' to build the mill an' run it like God intended it should be run, an' I am goin' to put, for once, the plan of salvation into business, if it busts me an' the plan too! For if it can't stand a business test it ought to bust!”
He planned it all himself, and, aided by Captain Tom, and Alice, the beautiful structure went up. Strong and airy and with every comfort for the workers. “For it strikes me,” said the old man, “that the people who wuck need mo' comforts than them that don't—at least the comforts of bein' clean. The fust thing I learned in geography was that God made three times as much water on the surface of the earth as he did dirt. But you wouldn't think so to look at the human race. It takes us a long time to take a hint.”
The big mountain spring settled the point, and when the mill was finished there were hot and cold baths in it for the tired workers. “For there's nothin' so good,” said the old man, “for a hot man or a hot hoss as a warm body-wash. It relaxes the muscles an' makes them come ag'in. An' the man that comes ag'in is the man the worl' wants.”