scholarship of the modern world owes almost more to the enterprise of the East India Company than to any one other thing that can be named. This power that took possession of India for the sake of the pounds, shillings, and pence involved led to the discovery of the old Hindu scriptures; and this to what? It unlocked the secrets of the old classical mythologies that the world had never comprehended before. It unlocked them so that we could come near to the sources, and see these things growing, in process. Before, they had been a mystery, and we were not able to understand their significance. This carried us toward the fountain-head of the world's religious life, the world's records of that religious life, its hymns and bibles; and, as a result of it, we have modern criticism. We have the science of comparative religion. We have discovered religions in their formative stage. We have seen their birth and growth. We have seen the elements out of which they sprang. So a light has been cast upon the origin and the growth of Christianity, and of the Hebrew religion, and of all the other religions of the world, such as could not have come from any other All this we owe to the business enterprise and the successful carrying out of the business inventions of man.

source.

Let us turn now, and note some of the things that business has done for the higher life of man, what we are accustomed to call the moral and spiritual life. Has business done anything for this? People have been preached to a great deal as to what religion has done for business, or what religion ought to do for business. It is not often, I think, that the matter has been turned round, and people have had an opportunity to find out what business has done for religion. Let us note two or three points.

One other distinguishing characteristic of the modern world, one of the most hopeful phases, is a growing sense of human brotherhood, the sense that man in every stage of his development, under no matter what form of government or whatever land, is still human; that he is the child of the one Father, and that we all are brethren. I am per

fectly aware that some of the religions of the world—not all of them - have been preaching this doctrine for a great many years. But that which has made it effective, that which has done more than all the bibles, more than all the religions, more than all the preachers put together, has been the development of the world's business. Consider what I You separate people and keep them apart, and it is very easy for a misunderstanding to spring up between them. Take it in so simple a matter as the conduct of your daily business. You send a messenger to a man instead of talking with him, and he may misunderstand that messenger. Or he may wish to ask a question to make the matter a little clearer, and not be able to get his answer from the messenger; and the misunderstanding increases. You may try to straighten out the matter by correspondence; but any letter that was ever written leaves room for questions to be asked, little points to be talked over, so that your letter may not mend the matter. But let these two men meet face to face, and look each other in the eyes and talk it over, and the chances are that a natural and easy solution may be found for the difficulty. But the moment you put an obstacle between people that keeps them apart you create the possibility of misconceptions that lead to enmity, to a sense of alienation, and that may end in hatred and outright warfare. The world from the beginning has been kept from being civilized because of the difficulties of bringing different people into communication with each other. They have been separated by almost every conceivable barrier,barriers of language, of mountain chains, of rivers and As individual misconceptions spring up when people are kept apart, so the conception of human brotherhood grows when people are brought together. Now, what is it that has made the peoples of the modern world flow together to so large an extent as they have? It is this mutual acquaintance. It has given a sense of reality, of human brotherhood, of human relations. It is the business enterprise of the world, more than all other forces combined. It

is this business enterprise that has bridged the oceans, tunnelled the mountains, broken down barriers, and brought people together in spite of political and religious antipathy. Beneath all these things there has been revealed a common heart of a common humanity.

Note one other thing, what business has done for the religious and moral nature and welfare of the world. Some of you will be surprised, perhaps, that I mention this. It is a common charge that the business world is made up of dishonesty, a lack of truth between man and man; yet right here I wish to say - and this contention can be maintained against all comers that the business of the world has done more to create and maintain a sense of truth in the world than everything else put together. If you will study those peoples who are isolated from the business world, that are not yet in accord with civilization as to their business wants and business activities, you will find that such a thing as truth is hardly a recognized quality. As a matter of fact, there is an outcry against defalcation, against dishonesty, against untruthfulness in business, not because they are common, but because they are uncommon,― relatively, I mean. As a matter of fact, the business of the world could not be carried on a day unless mutual trust and truthfulness were the very corner-stone of business, as it is. It is the necessity of business that men should tell the truth; and so, as I said, among the great business peoples of the world you will find to-day a higher and more general regard for truth than you will anywhere else on the face of the earth. And this has sprung up out of the fact that, if men are going to do business together for any length of time, they must trust each other. And you know they do trust each other,― trust each other to the extent of fabulous amounts of money. And you know that it is only now and then that a trust like this is betrayed; and, when it is betrayed, it becomes a matter of news, and is bruited all abroad over the world, as I said, because it is uncommon.

Then take another service which business has rendered to

the higher life of the world. We have not yet reached it; but we are approaching an age of human peace on earth and good will towards men. We are nearer to it to-day than we ever were before. Study the condition of primitive man. It is a condition of universal and almost perpetual warfare. To-day the world is comparatively free from war, wars that mean much, that are extensive. Wars are getting to be so expensive, and they interfere so with the carrying on of the world's business, that they are generally very sharp, short, and quickly over, because the business of the world will not back them up or support them or endure them for any longer time than is absolutely necessary. Business has done more to help on the age of peace than religion has. By religion I mean this technical talk of religion; for you will remember that I think religion and business are one. There never has been a war since the beginning of the world that religion or the priests or the ministers of the particular country in which the war was waged did not find some way to justify. Religion has preached against war, has decried it when it concerned some one else; but the moment when any particular people entered upon any war the constituted religion of that people has backed it up, and indorsed it. But the business of the world cannot endure this perpetual warfare; and it is the business interests of the world that by and by will bring about the long-desired reign of peace.

One more count let me make. What has religion done for the higher interests of the world? Out of the successful carrying on of business have blossomed all the higher and finer and sweeter aspects of human life. If men must use all their endeavors merely to exist, they remain animals. They must remain animals. There is no time or strength, and there are no faculties, to be devoted to anything else. But, just so soon as a successful carrying out of the business of the world is able to sustain the world without an absorption of all the higher intellectual, moral, spiritual faculties of mankind, then a certain quantity of these are set free, released, and are able to engage in those things which are on

a higher level than where we are accustomed to place these business interests. So out of the successful carrying on of business have blossomed architecture and art and music and poetry and literature. It is among those peoples that have been the most successful in their business relations, who have accumulated wealth, who have been able to create leisure on the part of those who are capable of devoting themselves to these higher interests, it is among these peoples that we find the highest and finest outflowering of these higher, spiritual qualities of men. So much, then, as a suggestion along a few lines concerning what business has done for the higher life of the world.

I wish now to turn and set this ideal man that I have been trying to create in your imaginations by this course of sermons,— I wish to set him face to face with the practical aspects of business life, and find out what kind of a man he will be in these things. Some things he will do: some things he will not do. Let us note how he will do some things, and how he will not do some.

In the first place, then, a man, being all that those two little words imply, will not be engaged in and will not countenance the conduct of any business the very existence of which is an injury to the world. You know there are businesses like that. You know there are people enough still found to carry them on, who take advantage of the lower, depraved, degraded desires of the world. A man will not engage in a business like that. He will not countenance nor support it.

In the second place, a man will not lie in carrying on his business. In his definition of the word "lying" he will not merely make it square with the statutory laws as to perjury. He will have a sensitive conscience as to what lying means, deception in business. A man will not lie.

In the next place, he will not steal. He will not keep simply within the statutory law. You know perfectly well that there are men occupying positions of prominence in this country to-day whose property represents nothing else in