I. Social life is based upon commercial contracts. Each bringing to the other some product of skill or toil. We cannot supply a fraction of our own wants, we must buy; and we have also in turn something to sell. Business is the outcome of this reciprocal dependence. Each can, each must help the other, or social and civic life would be impossible.
II. Dishonesty is subversive of the very basis of social life. It breaks confidence, alienates intercourse; closes friendly relationships, substitutes roguery for righteousness, and wrecks all goodwill. Pleasant to reflect--
1. How much trade honour there is among men.
2. How surely trickery brings discovery, and therefore penalty, on rogues.
3. How honesty is ever winning respect and reward.
III. Justice sits observant of all deceitful deeds. “I am the Lord.” He sees all secrecies; weighs all balances; hates all dishonesties; will requite all deceits. (W. H. Jellie.)
Honesty in small things
A young American aspirant for office in the State of Iowa drove up to an hotel, alighted, and engaged a room. He desired his trunk to be taken to his room, and, seeing a man passing whom he supposed to be the porter, he imperiously ordered him to take it up. The porter charged him twenty-five cents, which he paid with a marked quarter worth only twenty cents. He then said, “You know Governor Grimes? Oh, yes, sir.” “Well, take my card to him, and tell him I wish an interview at his earliest convenience.” “I am Governor Grimes, at your service, sir.” “You--I--that is, my dear sir, I beg--a--a thousand pardons!” “None needed at all, sir,” replied Governor Grimes. “I was rather favourably impressed with your letter, and had thought you well suited for the office specified; but, sir, any man who would swindle a working man out of a paltry five cents would defraud the public treasury had he an opportunity. Good evening, sir.”
An unfair judgment
Ajudge in New Orleans has recently set aside a jury verdict on somewhat unusual but certainly good grounds. A man was on trial for murder. After the case had been given to the jury they retired for consultation for verdict, and spent the hours in drinking whiskey and playing cards. They found the prisoner guilty; but the next day, in setting aside their verdict, Judge Baker said: “Twelve men, supplied with a quart bottle of whiskey and a deck of cards, who played poker from twelve o’clock at night till four in the morning, and holding a man’s life in their hands, could not possibly give the prisoner a fair trial. As long as I preside over this court I cannot sanction such a thing, and therefore I grant the prisoner a new trial.” (S. S. Chronicle.)
Righteous dealing
Rev. John Miller, writing in the New York Independent the reminiscence of an interview with the late A. T. Stewart, the millionaire storekeeper of New York, tells us that on one occasion in reply to his visitor’s question, “What is the secret of this enormous business?” Mr. Stewart replied: “The only secret I know is that I started with the idea of becoming professionally and actually a merchant. I saw lawyers and doctors become rich by making themselves precious to those they worked for. Hence certain rules. I had only one price.’ Ladies who come in their cushioned carriages don’t want to be fevered by the idea of beating down. Again, perfect goods! I bought and sold nothing damaged. And in a third of a century people got to buying of me with the luxury of an easy mind. I allowed no deceit. A youth who would misrepresent anything I would discharge. I forbade ladies to be allowed to deceive each other in talking of my goods, and salesmen were ordered to correct buyers who were standing by the goods, who said they would wash, for example, if they would not. You have no idea what comfort this would give in shopping through a long course of years and the business would grow, under this entire freedom from complaint, in a way that neither the storekeeper nor the buyer at the time might quite remark or understand. This is my secret,” said he, “as far as I can conceive. I have demanded full profits, but then I have bought with uniform care, and sold correctly and with absolute truth all my time.” “Poor humanity may have only one good side,” adds Mr. Miller, “but, certainly, that is worthy of a record.”
Honesty in common dealing
The idea running through this passage is manifestly that of an inward, solid, living truthfulness of mind, as opposed to all surface-virtue or sham, or to any mere keeping up of appearances or putting on of an outside for the avoiding of scandal or damage or disrepute. It is that of a heart entire and direct with itself: a heart without any doubleness or intricacy or prevarication; a heart that keeps itself clean of the dust and cobwebs that gather in the darkness of close designs, oblique arts, and snaky thoughts; and that rejoices to have its chambers all open, its passages clear, and full of light, and fresh and sweet with Heaven’s own breath. (Norman Hudson.)
Just dealings
In whatever we do or say let us by all means be faithful and true: deceiving no man; beguiling no man to his damage; punctual to our word and promise; firm and constant to our just engagements; honest and fair in all our dealings. Last, not least, let us be sure that we not only propose to ourselves good and laudable ends but that we also pursue them by no means but what are just and pure; remembering that--
“Him, only him, the shield of Heaven defends
Whose means are fair and spotless as his ends.”
Trade immoralities
A popular pastor preached once on the immoralities of trade. At the close of the service two of the prominent members of his church, both successful business men, came to him. Said the first: “Dominie, there is no use in preaching such a sermon. That sort of thing is never practised by honourable houses or by such men as compose this congregation.” The other called the preacher aside and said, “Dominie, there is no use in preaching such sermons. The practices you speak of are so universal that they have ceased to merit your characterisation of them. Every business house in this city does just that thing, my own amongst the rest. It is not worth while to preach against it.” (Hom. Review.)
Everyday religion
It is not Israel alone which has needed, and still needs, to hear iterated this command, for the sin is found in every people, even in every city, one might say in every town,in Christendom;and--wehave to say it--often with men who make a certain profession of regard for religion. All such, however religious in certain ways, have special need to remember that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord”; and that holiness is now exactly what it was when the Levitical law was given out. As, on the one side, it is inspired by reverence and fear toward God, so, on the other hand, it requires love to the neighbour as to one’s self, and such conduct as that will secure. It is of no account, therefore, to keep the Sabbath--in a way--and reverence--outwardly--the sanctuary, and then on the week-day water milk, adulterate medicines, sugars, and other foods, slip the yard-stick in measuring, tip the balance in weighing, and buy with one weight or measure and sell with another, “water” stocks and gamble in “margins,” as the manner of many is. God hates, and even honest atheists despise, religion of this kind. Strange notions, truly, of religion have men who have not yet discovered that it has to do with just such commonplace, everyday matters as these, andhave never yet understood how certain it is that a religion which is only used on Sundays has no holiness in it; and therefore, when the day comes, as it is coming, that shall try every man’s work as by fire, it will, in the fierce heat of Jehovah’s judgment, be shrivelled into ashes as a spider’s web in a flame, and the man and his work shall perish together. (S. H. Kellogg, D. D.)
Commercial justice in other nations
TheHindoo law imposes the highest fines not only upon those who falsify scales or measures, but upon official examiners of coins who pronounce a good piece bad or a bad piece good; it inflicts heavy penalties, and partially corporeal chastisement, upon those who overreach customers, give short measure or light weight, adulterate goods, or try to give them a deceptive appearance; and with respect to a trader in counterfeited gold, it enacts that “by order of the king he must be cut in pieces with razors,” or that “he must at least lose three limbs of his body and pay the highest fine.” In Egypt, false coiners and the manufacturers of false weights were condemned to have both their hands cut off; and fraudulent practices of this kind were held in equal detestation by other nations, and were visited with similar punishments. (M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.)
