MR. SAVAGE'S BOOKS. SERMONS AND ESSAYS. 1.50 Christianity the Science of Manhood. 187 pages. 1873 $1.00 1876 191 pages. 1880 1881 Talks about Jesus. 161 pages. The Religious Life. 212 pages. 1885 200 pages. Social Problems. 189 pages. 1886. 1.00 1 00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 188. 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 Religious Reconstruction. 246 pages. Four Great Questions concerning God. 86 pp. The Evolution of Christianity. 178 pages. 1892 .25 1.00 .25 .1.00 1.25 1.50 1.50 .50 -75 1.00 Mr. Savage's weekly sermons are regularly printed in pamphlet form in Unity Pulpit." Subscription price, for the season, $1.50; single copy, 5 cents. GEO. H. ELLIS, Publisher, 141 Franklin St., Boston, Mass. A MAN IN BUSINESS. "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"- Luke ii. 49. I PRESUME that you have not been accustomed to find anything in these words of the young boy. of twelve from Nazareth that even suggested to you the ordinary meaning of the word "business." And yet I take it that, when the world becomes purely civilized, all the occupations of the world will be recognized as only parts of the Father's business. This great truth I shall hope to suggest at any rate to you before I am through. The business of the world may be summed up, I suppose, in two words, production and distribution: it is the creating and the distributing of those things which the needs or the wishes of the world demand. Ordinarily, a very wide divorce is recognized as existing between business and religion, between that which is looked upon as the purely secular side of life and that which concerns the ideal, the spiritual nature of man. When a man goes into business, he is apt to think that he is engaged in something that does not necessarily take him very near to the divine, but into something in which perhaps he feels he must leave the divine ideals and the divine presence very largely out of account. In other words, I think it has been too common on the part of business men to depreciate their business, or not sufficiently to honor it, not sufficiently to appreciate the human, the divine, side of the occupations that engage their attention. I wish to suggest this truth, and to start your thoughts along certain lines in that direction, after calling your attention to some things which business has done and is doing for the higher sides of human life. In the first place, let us note how much business has done for the physical man, for the material side of our civilization. The difference between the lowest type of man and the highest type may in one way be regarded as the difference in the number, in the multiplicity, of his wants. The more things a man wants and the higher the things that he wants, the more he is a man. If you wish to sum the whole thing up in a word, look at a barbarian in a hut, scarcely needing clothing, supplying himself with such food as he can get with the simplest efforts, without anything that can be called a house, only the roughest, rudest kind of shelter, and with. none of those things that suggest what we mean by human wants, and then place beside that man and that hut the completest home that you have ever seen. The distance travelled between the hut and the home suggests more than almost anything else what the business of the world has done for man, looked at almost entirely on his animal side. The business of the world suggests new desires. It goes on to supply those new desires, and out of the habits thus gained there is a constant widening, deepening, heightening, of human wants; and so man, looked at purely on the material side, becomes more, deeper, broader, loftier in his stature, more and more a man. Let us turn from that, which I only throw out as a hint, to note what business has done for the intellectual side of life. We sometimes trace a contrast between the business man and the intellectual man; and it is quite possible that a man should so narrow himself, and become so absorbed in his special line of business, as to neglect the larger intellectual life. It is possible that he may stunt the intellectual faculties that might be called into play, and so create an intellectual antagonism between business and the intellectual life of the world; and yet, when I am done, I think you will see how large an intellectual debt the world owes to the business enterprise of men. I merely call your attention to -I cannot stop to catalogue them the innumerable evidences of intellectual inge nuity, acuteness, invention, and discovery which constitute the material civilization of the world to-day. Note there, again, the contrast between the barbarian, almost entirely without intellectual curiosity, who stares only with a sort of ox-like wonder at anything which is unfamiliar to him, to whom it hardly occurs to ask questions, to search for causes, to discover methods,- contrast, I say, that man with Edison, with the type of the alert, the inventive, the constructive, the creative genius of the world! Think what a stimulant business activity, business invention, has been to the intellect of man! for almost all the things that have been created and that make up what we mean when we say modern civilization have come as the result of the business ingenuity, activity, inventiveness, and enterprise of the world. Recollect that the brain of man grows in power, in weight, in complexity of structure, to keep step with the thought of man. I will not raise the subtle question as to whether thought creates brain or brain creates thought. I am inclined to think that, just as it is breathing which adds to lung power, so it is thinking which adds to brain power; but the two grow together, and keep equal step in the advance of mankind. As, then, when man desires something new, he faces obstacles and invents something to enable him to accomplish the end he has in view, so the intellectual power of man becomes more keen, acute, mighty, masterful. Take, for example, the mariner's compass. Take all that has followed after that. Or you may go back farther, if you please, and begin with the human discovery of fire, with man's ability to smelt and recombine the metals. Take any step you please in civilization, and you will find either business ingenuity or business inventiveness, business enterprise, the business hunger of the world, as the mainspring and motive force of the intellectual uplift and onlook. Then, to turn to another phase, take the discoveries of the world, the knowledge that we have attained concerning this little planet on which is our home. We owe this knowledge of the world to the business enterprise and hunger of men more than to anything and everything else. The first hint that we find in classical antiquity or in the traditions of nations of the far-off voyages of the world, they were business enterprises. The search for the Golden Fleece, the fleets hinted in the Old Testament in Solomon's time,what were they for? They were after the gold of Ophir. They were for bringing back from far-off lands the spices and different things that people in their little higher type of civilization had come to desire. Almost every voyage of the ancient world had the business instinct of man as its mainspring, its motive force. And, when we come to those larger enterprises, what was the voyage of Columbus for? He did, indeed, have as a personal secret, hid away in his own heart, a religious desire. He hoped he might find somewhere traces of the earthly paradise, of the Garden of Eden. And, when he became rich enough, it was his intention to equip a magnificent army, and take possession of the Holy Sepulchre, ridding it once for all of the infidel. But that which inspired Ferdinand and Isabella, the backers of Columbus, to furnish him means for his voyage, was that they might find a way to the accumulated and fabulous riches of India. It was business which led to the discovery of America. So almost every voyage that has been undertaken since then. The enterprise which has led to the exploration of the most distant parts of the earth, which has opened up the secrets that have been hidden for centuries in the heart of the Dark Continent, which has led to the sources of the Nile, which has made Africa a known territory after being a mystery for thousands of years,— all this has been accomplished by business enterprise. Let us take a step further, showing how in many unexpected quarters the business inventions of man have led to an increase in the world's knowledge. When the great East India Company was organized, it was for business, and business alone. There were no religious yearnings, no humanitarian impulses, no conscious desire to better mankind or to add to the world's knowledge; and yet the |
