Young Men; In Business

by William Guest; J. D. Wells

Many fail for lack of qualities and habits, and, it may be, opportunities, that condition success. But they do not fail who use all diligence, and their best wisdom and opportunity, and yet become poor without the loss of a good conscience toward God and man. And they certainly succeed who amass wealth or a competency while maintaining their integrity in relation to God and their honor among men.

It may be well to state here some of the well-ascertained facts in regard to the percentage of success and failure in business, using the words in their most limited meaning.

Only from three to five in every hundred men who embark in business have large and permanent success. And these are not chiefly those who begin with large capital. For the most part they are men who have been architects of their own fortunes. Beginning as boys on low wages, and passing through all grades of advancement from the lowest to the highest, they have at last become strong enough to make their own terms with those who have gladly recognized their ability and integrity as the equivalent of large capital; or without such aid they have worked their way to splendid success.

About ten out of a hundred have moderate success. Without aspiring to the rank of millionaires they have an abundance for personal and family use, and are able to share freely, if so inclined, in the beneficence of their times.

The remaining eighty-five in a hundred are on a sliding scale from partial success to utter failure. Leaving out of view all the cases in which men of integrity and ability fail by reason of unavoidable calamity, or lack of opportunity, how shall we account for the large percentage of failures? And as the percentage continues from year to year, and perhaps increases from generation to generation, it seems clear that the reasons are permanent and powerful.

It certainly throws a deep shadow over households and communities to think that young men have before them such gloomy prospects. Can we not brighten them? Must every hundred young men, full of the strength and enterprise belonging to their age, advance toward the goal of their ambition under the depressing thought that only from five to twenty are likely to win prizes? At best the cares and responsibilities and risks of business men are very great. But I do not believe that circumstances external to themselves control the business destiny of young men. They may avoid disastrous failure and win success. At least a very large percentage of them may win the wholesome success which consists in having neither poverty nor riches; for this after all may be welcomed as the safest and best condition. But they may also be prepared by excellence of character, and by habits of business and of life, for the possession and use of large wealth, under the great responsibility of stewards who are yet to give account to the real Proprietor of all the treasures in the world.

It should be remembered that young men may succeed as clerks and utterly fail as the responsible heads of business concerns. For this reason the conditions of success, of which I am about to write, have reference largely to times beyond the years of apprenticeship and subordination.

Young men may enjoy the confidence of their employers while they are disqualifying themselves for independent action. Devotion to their interests may secure rapid advancement in positions and salaries. They may be extravagant and immoral, and yet have qualities that cover their faults and commend them to favor. While they remain under the direction and control of men better and stronger than themselves they may be congratulated as already successful, while they are bearing about in their own persons all the conditions of sure and disastrous failure.

The first and fundamental condition of real and permanent success is good character. This may be set down without qualification. Character is an engraving. A good character answers to a divine ideal or pattern. It is not made in a day, and if marred it can be restored. Bearing the deep cuts and finer lines of truth and righteousness and pureness, it will bear the violence of temptation in private, social, and business life, and the severer testing of the last day.

Of course such a character is secretly and openly religious. Only when young men consent to commit the keeping of their souls and bodies to Jesus Christ, and to bear any cross that in his love and faithfulness he may lay upon them, can they be strong in the Lord and the power of his might.