A Lamp to the Path / Or, The Word of God in the Heart, the Home, the Workshop and the Market-Place

by W. K. Tweedie

But instead of adopting such maxims, all who are in earnest about the world to come have felt, that just as the body needs the vital air at all times, the soul at all times needs the guidance of truth; THE
ALIMENT
OF THE
SOUL. or as the body may die, in the twinkling of an eye, if it be deprived of that which is appointed by God to keep it in life, so the soul cleaves to the dust—it becomes dead to the noblest of all objects, even to God and eternity—when it is not constantly fed or constantly stimulated by the truth which connects us with Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being.

Under the deep conviction of that, we have tried to show how the truth which the Spirit teaches in the Word of God, should be mingled with all that we do. Far from leaving it out of view for a breath, it is a party to all our transactions; it should be a counsellor in all our difficulties, and a guide in all the relations of life. The heart, the home, the workshop; the place of public resort, as well as the place where no eye sees, and no ear hears, but God’s, should find us evermore accompanied by the truth, evermore subject to its control, while it directs our thoughts, our words, and deeds, according to the will of God.

We are now, then, to contemplate Christianity in the Market-place, or the place where business is wont to be done. Epithets of contempt have been applied to us as a nation, because of our busy engrossments in the countless departments of buying, and selling, and getting gain; and it cannot but be important to consider the maxims which should guide us in such pursuits.

Now, it is one of the glories of our faith, that it makes ample provision for all the activities of life. Yet, under pretext of being devout beyond the standard of ordinary men, there have been some who fled to deserts, and dwelt in dens and caves of the earth. Professing to seek a closer walk with God, or more ample scope for the culture of the Christian graces, they have forsaken the duties of life, and made themselves useless to society, as if indolence were a virtue, or inactivity a fruit or a proof of true religion.

THE MERCHANT PRINCES.

But any one who will merely glance at the Word of God, may see that such opinions find no sanction there. Far from encouraging inactivity, or exhorting us to forsake the post of duty, and retire to loneliness and seclusion, that Word expressly prohibits such a course. It tells us not to be slothful in business. It says that what our hands find to do, we should do it with all our might. It assures us that we must study to be quiet, and do our own business, and work with our own hands. It adds, that if any man will not work, neither shall he eat. It sets a brand upon those who “learn to be idle, who wander about from house to house, not only idle, but tattlers also.” In short, religion, as it lies in the Bible, stands at our side in the place of business, and says, “Be not slothful here;” and adds, “It is the hand of the diligent which maketh rich.”—THE
MERCHANT
PRINCES.While we gaze on the merchant princes on the Exchange of London, when some exciting rumour has arrived, some war been proclaimed or threatened, or while some mercantile crash is impending, or some millionaire bankruptcy just announced—we cannot but feel that if men retain their religion amid these excitements, they are religious according to the highest standard that earth can ever know. Not the recluse, not the man whose life is idle, and whose duties are tame and domestic, can display the loftiest style of Christianity; but the man who holds fast his integrity amid the activities of life, and embodies in his practice the scriptural injunction, “Be not slothful in business.”

THE ENTHRONEMENT OF SELF.

True, this maxim is often more than obeyed; business absorbs, business agitates, business ruins millions. Surrendering themselves without a check to its engrossments, they are swallowed up by overmuch care, and socially and religiously become wrecks, though they may pile up gold in heaps. How many in this land are making gold their god, and fine gold their confidence, we need not try to tell. But to correct that tendency, the word of truth has commanded our men of busy lives not merely to be active, but, moreover, to be “serving the Lord” by their activity. It is not activity for the sake of amassing wealth; it is not activity merely that we may stand among the foremost in the market-place, or be able, as some have been, to give laws to kings and empires, to make peace or to declare war. THE
ENTHRONEMENT
OF SELF. That is not religion; it is the enthronement of self. We are to serve the Lord even in our business. His will is to be our will there, as much as when we are upon our knees before him. The objects to which he points are to be pursued by us; and thus, amid the scenes of busiest occupation, where much that is secular may tend to disturb, or much that is sordid to debase, the man of activity is also to be the man of piety and of Christian principle. Religion is not to be kept for set times and set occasions; it is not to be left behind us when we leave our homes: nay, as the Lord is in every place, the fear of him should everywhere preside.

MAMMON.

When the Saviour said, “I pray not that thou wouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil that is in the world,” he not merely uttered a prayer, but, moreover, announced a rule for regulating duty; and they who have imbibed the spirit of His words, understand the religion of Jesus—a religion most exquisitely adapted to man on earth, a religion at once of ever-doing activity, and of faithful serving the Lord amid it all. There are, no doubt, snares and perils beyond what can be counted to the souls of men, in the engrossments of business. In commerce, through all its branches, as it appears in our land and day, there is much to deaden the soul, much to eraze the very thought of God; MAMMON. and hence Mammon is the only god of many. But the reason of that is, not that business is essentially godless, but that men prefer God’s gifts to himself. Because he is forgotten, thousands are ensnared; they are as completely entombed in worldliness, as the corpse that was yesterday interred is entombed in the deep grave where it lies.