Golden Rule Courage

"There is so much good in the worst of us,

And so much bad in the best of us,

That it hardly becomes any of us

To talk about the rest of us."





THAT popular rhyme hits the nail squarely on the head. We are not to

judge others. The world would be a pleasanter dwelling place if we would

lay aside our critical attitude, and look on the best side of the men
< r /> and women about us. Instead, however, it sometimes seems as if we were

determined to forget all the good, and remember only the evil. Our

additions to the comments of others are not praise, but blame. We do not

seek to correct an unfavorable comment by saying, "But think of the good

there is in his life"; we insist on drowning merited praise by saying,

"But think how selfish he is; how careless of the comfort of others!"

That is the cowardly thing to do. And life calls for courage.



The worst thing about the maker of such comments is that the readier he

is to see--or imagine--faults in another, the more blind he is apt to

become to faults in himself. This inability to see his own shortcomings

would be ludicrous if it were not so pitiful. Yet these shortcomings are

apparent to all who know him. Jesus, who knew human nature, said, "Judge

not, that ye be not judged ... first cast out the beam out of thine own

eye; then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy

brother's eye."



The courageous task of reforming ourselves seems prodigious when we

think what good opinions we have of ourselves and what poor opinions we

have of others, but the task is not impossible, for God has promised to

give us the help we need, and He will never disappoint us. An earthly

father knows how to give good things to his children; shall not the

Heavenly Father do as much and more?



Since we have such a Father, it is the least we can do to learn of Him

the true philosophy of life. Listen while He tells us what it is:



"All things, therefore, whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you,

even so do ye also unto them."



Impossible and impracticable? Let us see.





I



LOOKING OUT FOR OTHERS



The president of a big manufacturing concern, who is also its active

operating head, is quoted as saying that he finds a growing tendency

among young men to go after business by sharp practice when they cannot

get it any other way. They will "cut the corners of a square deal to

land an order." In applying for positions, he goes on to say, some young

fellows have tried to recommend themselves by telling how they got

orders for former employers by some neat trick.



"I have had to tell them, square and plain," he adds, "that there wasn't

any recommendation in that kind of talk with me. I have made up my mind

that I am going to write out some plain talks on righteousness and post

them up around the offices and shops where everybody will have a chance

to read them. I have explained my plan about these bulletins to a number

of other manufacturers, and I think several of them are going to do the

same thing. Besides the moral reasons for the policy, it's the only

policy to build up a sound business on. Take even the men who would be

willing to make profit for themselves by shady deals, and they all want

to buy goods for themselves of a firm that they can depend on. I think

our history this past year has proved the wisdom of it; business has

been rolling in from points that we never had an idea of getting

anything from. The Golden Rule works."



Nathan Strauss was once asked what contributed most to his remarkable

success. "I always looked out for the man at the other end of the

bargain," he said.



In 1901 the State of Wisconsin struck a beautiful bronze medal in honor

of Professor Stephen Moulton Babcock, the inventor of the milk test

machine. Professor Babcock, so one admirer says, "knew its value to

farmer and dairyman. He also knew its possibilities of fortune for

himself. This invention has 'increased the wealth of nations by many

millions of dollars and made continual new developments possible in

butter and cheesemaking.' All this Professor Babcock knew it would do

when he announced his discovery in a little bulletin to the farmers of

Wisconsin. But at the bottom of that bulletin he added the brief and

unselfish sentence, 'this test is not patented.' With that sentence he

cheerfully let a fortune go. He wanted his invention to help other

people, rather than make himself rich."



What a difference it would make if everyone should take the Golden Rule

as the motto for each day, asking Christ's help in living in accordance

with it! What a difference it would make in every home if father and

mother and all the sons and daughters should resolve to make theirs a

Golden-Rule household! The first thing necessary in bringing about such

a change in the home is for one member to make the resolution and to do

his best to live up to it. Others will follow inevitably when they note

his careful, unselfish life and helpful acts.



There is a Jewish tradition that a Gentile came to Hillel asking to be

taught the law, in a few words, while he stood on one foot. The answer

was given, "Whatsoever thou wouldst that men should not do to thee, that

do not thou to them." This was good, as far as it went, but there was

nothing positive about it. Christ's teaching supplies the lack, showing

what we are to do as well as what we are to leave undone. Christ always

gives the touch required to make old teachings glow with life.





II



SUCCEEDING BY COURAGEOUS SERVICE



When John E. Clough was a student working his way through college, he

was employed in a menial capacity at a hotel in a western town. His

employer was absent for a season and the student was compelled to take

charge of the hotel. He was successful, for he learned how to handle men

of many sorts, how to provide for their comfort, how to make them feel

that he was doing his best for them.



Years later, when he was a missionary in India, it became necessary for

him to plan for the temporary entertainment of the men and women who

came to the mission station by hundreds, and even by thousands, seeking

Christian baptism. For days it was necessary to provide for their

comfort. Many men would have been dismayed by the task, but to Dr.

Clough the problem presented was simple; he had only to do on a large

scale the very things which made his boyhood efforts at hotel-keeping

such a pronounced success.



Experience in a hotel is a good course of preparation for any young man,

whether he plans to be a missionary or to serve in any of the home

callings that demand the Christian's time and thought. However, it is

not possible for more than a very small proportion of young people to

serve a period in a hotel; so it will be helpful to them to read some of

the suggestions that have been made by a successful hotel proprietor.

Those who heed these suggestions are apt to be successful in dealing

with men and women anywhere.



It is worth while to note some of these rules:



"The hotel is operated primarily for the benefit and convenience of its

guests.



"Any member of our force who lacks the intelligence to interpret the

feeling of good will that this hotel holds toward its guests, cannot

stay here very long.



"Snap judgments of men often are faulty. The unpretentious man with the

soft voice may possess the wealth of Croesus.



"You cannot afford to be superior or sullen with any patron of the

hotel.



"At rare intervals some perverse member of our force disagrees with a

guest as to the rightness of this or that.... Either may be right.... In

all discussions between hotel employees and guests, the employee is dead

wrong from the guest's standpoint, and from ours....



"Each member of our force is valuable only in proportion to his ability

to serve our guests.



"Every item of extra courtesy contributes towards a better pleased

guest, and every pleased guest contributes toward a better, bigger

hotel...."



Yet a young man should not have to go to a hotel to learn these lessons.

They were taught in the Book that every one of us should know better

than any other book in our library. Listen to these messages of the

Book, and compare them with the rules of the hotel:



"Not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the

things of others....



"Be tenderly affectioned one to another, in honor preferring one

another....



"Judge not that ye be not judged.... The rich and the poor meet

together: Jehovah is the maker of them all....



"Better it is to be of a lowly spirit....



"He that is slow in anger appeaseth strife....



"I am among you as he that serveth....



"Ye are the light of the world...."



The best book for anyone who is trying to be a success in the world is

the Bible, for the Bible teaches how to serve, and he who has the

courage best to serve his fellows in the name of the great Servant is

the most successful man.





III



SERVICE BY SYMPATHY



It has been said that, while the word "sympathy" does not occur in the

Bible, the idea is there; it is in bud in the Old Testament, but it is

in full blossom in the New Testament. Christ was always sympathetic. He

felt for the disturbed host at the wedding; His heart went out to

Zaccheus; He wept with Mary and Martha; He listened to the plea of the

blind and the lepers; He was deeply stirred as He saw the funeral

procession of him who was the only son of his mother, a widow.



An eloquent preacher was talking to his people of this glorious flower

of the Christian life. "Beholding the lily," he said, "sympathy breathes

a prayer that no untimely frost may blight the blossom; beholding the

sparrow, sympathy fills a box with seeds for the birds whose fall 'the

Heavenly Father knoweth'; beholding some youth going forth to make his

fortune, sympathy prays that favorable winds may fill these sails and

waft the boy to fame and fortune. Do the happy youth and maiden stand

before the marriage altar, the Christian breathes a prayer that love's

flowers may never fall, and that 'those who are now young may grow old

together.'"



One of the pleasing stories told of Richard Harding Davis, the writer

and war correspondent, was of an incident when real sympathy transformed

him.



In May, 1898, when the Massachusetts troops were about to go from

Florida to Cuba, Mr. Davis entered the encampment as the men were

saddened by the first death in the company. At once his cheerful face

took on a subdued look. The next day proved to be "a broiling dry hot

day which set the blood sizzling inside of one," but Davis tramped for

two hours in the search of flowers. Then he learned that eight miles

away he might secure some. Though no one was abroad who did not have to

be, Mr. Davis started on a sixteen-mile horseback trip. Securing the

flowers, he brought them back and made a cross of laths on which he tied

them. Then came the search for colors to make the flag. Again he tramped

a weary distance, but at last he found red, white and blue ribbon. That

night he laid his tribute on the casket.



An American author who lived several generations before Davis was noted

for his sympathetic attitude to the suffering. Richard Henry Dana was

compelled when a young man to take a voyage around Cape Horn on a

sailing ship. That classic of the sea, "Two Years Before the Mast," was

one of the results of that experience. Another result was that when the

author became a lawyer in Boston, his knowledge of ships made him a

favorite advocate in nautical cases. His knowledge of the sufferings of

the men before the mast, who were so often abused, was responsible for

his taking their part in many an unprofitable case. He had learned by

bitter experience what the sailors under a brutal captain had to suffer,

and any mistreated seaman had in him a firm friend and a fearless

pleader.



The truest sympathy comes from those who, like Dana, know what suffering

means. An author in Scotland, who lived in Dana's generation, never

heard of the American friend of seamen, but he had the same spirit, born

of his own suffering. He was not accustomed to complain, and was always

reticent in speaking of himself. Once, however, for the sake of a

friend, he allowed himself to tell of his own life:



"With all your sorrows I sympathize from my heart," he wrote. "I have

learned to do so through my own sufferings. The same feeling which made

you put your hand into your pocket to search among the crumbs for the

wanting coin for the beggar, leads me to search in my heart for some

consolation for you. The last two years have been fraught to me with

such sorrowful experiences that I would gladly exchange my condition for

a peaceful grave. A bankrupt in health, hope and fortune, my

constitution shattered frightfully, and the almost certain prospect of

being a cripple for life before me, I can offer you as fervent and

unselfish a sympathy as ever one heart offered another. I have lain

awake, alone, and in darkness, suffering severe agony for hours, often

thinking that the slightest aggravation must make my condition

unbearable and finding my only consolation in murmuring to myself the

words patience, courage and submission."



That, surely, is a part of what Robert Louis Stevenson meant when, as

one element in his statement of the ideal for the perfect life, he named

"to be kind." True kindness is impossible without sympathy.



So long as there is so much real sympathy in the world there can be no

place for the maunderings of a pessimist. Every sight of a man, a woman

or a child whose life is beautified by the outgoing of sympathy is an

effective message of courage, of cheer, of hope.





IV



DOING BUSINESS FOR OTHERS



A Boston boy, Samuel Billings Capen, wanted to become a minister. Yet it

did not seem possible to secure the special training which was

essential. Instead of being discouraged, he determined to go into

business.



But he resolved that he would be a business man of God. From the first

he carried his Christian principles with him into the carpet business.

His faithful work as office boy was a part of his testimony for Christ,

and when--within five years--he became a member of the firm, he was

known as one of the solid Christian men of the city. Always his duty to

Christ came first. In the words of his biographer, "There was not a

moment when he would not have left the firm with which he was associated

had the business demanded any compromise with the best things of

character."



Once he spoke to young men of these few things essential to vital

living:



"The first is fidelity--that kind of conscientiousness which performs

the smallest details well.



"The second condition is earnestness. There is no chance for the idle or

indifferent.



"The third condition is integrity--not that lower form which refuses to

tell a downright falsehood, but that higher form of conscientiousness

which will not swerve a hair's breadth from the strictest truth, no

matter what the temptation; the courage to lose a sale rather than to do

that which is mean or questionable.



"The fourth condition I would name is purity of heart and life. I do not

believe it is possible for any man to be true and pure and faithful in

every respect without help from above. We need the personal help of a

personal God."



Thirteen years after beginning his service as apprentice, Mr. Capen's

health failed. For many months his life was in danger. God used the

sickness to draw the young man nearer to Himself. "Compelled to remain

for months in absolute idleness, unable to talk to his friends except to

a limited extent, he made the solemn resolve with his God that if his

health was restored he would never shirk any work nor complain of any

task that might be presented to him."



For a generation he was not only a leader in business, but he was as

conspicuous in his service of the State as in his services in the

Church.



Why did he succeed? He was not a genius. His health was poor. He was

not mentally brilliant. In these respects he was just an average man.

But in other respects he was above the average. He had the courage to

give himself in service of his fellows. "He believed that conscious

fellowship with God is the foundation of every strong life."



A life like that influenced for good everyone about him. Many men were

drawn by him into the paths of righteousness. Others were held back by

him from ways of evil. Once he presided over a public meeting which

corrupt politicians had planned to capture for their own purpose. But

they made no attempt to carry out their plans. "How could we succeed

with that man watching us?" they asked their friends.



It is good to be a minister of the gospel. But for every minister the

world needs hundreds of men who are possessed of Samuel B. Capen's

courageous eagerness to live for God in the midst of business cares.





V



PRAYING AND HELPING



A business man entered the office of a friend just as the friend was

hanging up the receiver of the telephone. There were tears in the eyes

of the man at the desk as he turned from the instrument to take the hand

of his visitor.



"I'm afraid you have had bad news," the visitor said, deciding that it

was not a propitious time to talk of the matter on which he had come.



"No bad news--the best of news," was the reply. "Now see if you don't

agree with me. This morning my wife, who is always thinking of other

people, remarked that it was too bad my pastor's wife could not have a

vacation this summer; she shows the need of it because of a severe

strain that had been on her. Yet we knew that she could not look forward

to a vacation.



"'Let's pray about it,' my wife suggested, just before we knelt at the

family altar. We prayed then; we've been praying since. And the answer

has come quickly. My wife was on the telephone just now; she told me

that the postman had brought a letter from a California friend of whom

we had all but lost sight. Fifteen years ago we lent him a sum of money

which we never expected to see again. Yet the letter contained a check

for the amount of the loan!



"'What shall we do with the money?' my wife asked.



"'I wonder if you are not thinking the same thing I am,' I said to her.



"'Yes, isn't it the answer to our prayer?' she replied. 'I'm going to

take it to our pastor's wife right now.'"



The business man was thoughtful as he passed from his friend's office.

Just a few hours before he had been told by an acquaintance of his

longing, when on a long trip, to have such a glimpse of the life of one

of the many passengers near him that he would be able to help that

passenger before the end of the journey. The wish was a prayer. Not long

after the making of the prayer he noted a man who was so restless that

he could not sit still. Every moment or two he looked at his watch, then

studied his time table. Evidently he was disturbed because the train was

late.



"I hope you are not to lose a connection in Chicago?" the observing

traveler said to him.



"Yes, I'll miss it--and my baby is dying five hours from Chicago," was

the response, given with a sob.



The time was short, but there was opportunity for the interchange of a

few words, then for a conference with the conductor, who wired asking

that the connecting train--at another station and on another road--be

held for ten minutes.



A week later came a note from the happy father. His babe was rapidly

recovering. "And I'll never forget the words you spoke to me in my

agony," he wrote. "God is more real to me since our talk as we went into

Chicago. You put heart into me."





VI



GIVING THAT COUNTS



An old fable tells of a good man to whom the Lord said he would give

whatever he most desired. Besought by friends to ask great things, he

refused. Finally he asked that he might be able to do a great deal of

good without ever knowing it. And so it came about that every time the

good man's shadow fell behind him or at either side, so that he could

not see it, it had the power to cure disease, soothe pain and comfort

sorrow.



When he walked along, his shadow, thrown on the ground on either side or

behind him, made arid paths green, caused withered plants to bloom, gave

clear water to dried up brooks, fresh color to pale little children, and

joy to unhappy mothers.



But he simply went about his daily life, diffusing virtue as the star

diffuses light and the flower perfume, without ever being aware of it.

And the people, respecting his humility, followed him silently, never

speaking to him about his miracles. Little by little, they even came to

forget his name, and called him only "The Holy Shadow."



It would be a splendid thing if all would learn the lesson taught in the

fable--that the man who would do good should have the courage to be

unconscious of the good he is doing, and so as unlike as possible the

rich woman of whom some one has told, who turned a deaf ear to every

petition for help unless there was a subscription paper circulated and

she was given the chance to head the list. "But no poor person came into

her house who said, 'May God reward you!' She never experienced the

pleasure of making a poor woman on the back stairs happy with a cup of

warm coffee, or hungry children with a slice of bread and butter, or an

infirm man with a penny. Perhaps she satisfied her conscience by saying

that she did not believe in indiscriminate charity. Frequently that

excuse is given conscientiously but how often the real meaning is, 'I do

not believe in charity that does not make people talk of my

generosity.'"



In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught the folly of giving in such a

manner. The lesson was enforced by two pictures--a man standing on the

street, giving alms to the poor, while attention is called to his

generosity by the sounding of a trumpet which everyone must hear, and a

man whose giving is so much a matter of secrecy that he does not think

of it a second time. There is no rolling of it over as a sweetmeat under

his tongue, as if to say, "What a generous man I am!" Nor is there any

motive in the giving but pure desire to glorify God. All this is

properly included in the interpretation of "Let not thy left hand know

what thy right hand doeth."





VII



EXPENSIVE ECONOMY



A magazine editor offered a prize for the best account by a reader of

the adjustment of income and expenditure made necessary by the vaulting

prices of recent years. The prize was awarded to one whose revised

budget showed the revision downward of many items, and the elimination

of two or three other items. The comparison of the budgets was

interesting and helpful; most readers would be apt to approve heartily

all but one of the changes and eliminations. This was the exception:

the earlier budget allowed five dollars per month for "church and

charity," while the revised budget made no mention of the claims of

others, no provision for the privilege of giving.



If you had been a judge in that contest, would you have felt like giving

the prize to a paper that suggested such an omission? Suppose you had

the task of cutting your budget, would you feel like revising downward

the provision for giving? What do you think of the statement of a famous

business man who, having insisted in time of financial reverses on

making gifts as usual, said to objecting friends, "Economy should not

begin at the house of God." Why not let economy begin there?



What answer would have been given to such a query by the poor tenement

dweller in New York City who, though compelled to earn the support of

her family by scrubbing floors in a great office building, set aside a

dollar and a half per week for the care of four orphans in India who but

for her gifts would have starved?



What answer would have been made by the Polish Jew, long resident in

America, who directed in his will that regular gifts be made at

Christmas and Easter to the Christians as well as to the Jews of his

home town in Europe? That bequest was made in memory of days and nights

of terror when, as a boy, he hid in the house from the fiendish

persecutions of so-called Christians who thought Easter and Christmas

favorable times for the intimidation of the Jews. What would he have

said to the idea of economy that forgets the needs of others and makes

no provision for satisfying the hungry, to help the suffering?



What would have been the comment of Him who told the parable of the rich

man who built great barns to hold the surplus product of his lands,

thinking that there was nothing better in life than to eat, drink, and

be merry; who compared the gifts of the rich man and the poor widow; who

commended the love of the woman who poured out the costly ointment upon

His head; who promises glorious recognition to those who give, in His

name, to any who are in need?



A successful manufacturer, whose eyes have been opened to the folly of

attempting to save by cutting off gifts, has written a series of essays

on "The Business Man and His Overflow," his purpose being to show that

happiness is dependent on helpfulness. "Who is the most successful

business man?" he asks. "The man who has the largest bank account? Not

necessarily.... The most successful business man is he who renders the

greatest service to mankind and whose life is most useful."



Two paths are open to us: we can give, and we can give more, or we can

economize in giving until we give nothing.



Which is the path of courage?