Jesus Christ as a business man...

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Introduction

I >HE subject of our book is, "Jesus Christ as a Business Man; or, The Ministry of Property." The Scriptures tell us that Jesus Christ was the son of a carpenter, and that He was a carpenter. Never did labor receive so high honor as when He took up the axe and the adze, the chizel and the plane. Had you seen Him bargaining for His labor, delivering the finished work to its owner, you would have seen the Master of all tradesmen doing business. But this applies to Him and to His life before His public ministry began, and it is not to this part of His life that we wish to call attention or give emphasis in our book.

His public ministry, His dealing with men for time and eternity, enlarging upon His teachings in regard to the ministry of property, is the subject of the following pages. It is true that Jesus Christ was a minister in the highest sense of the word, and it is also true that He was a business man, who never had His equal or one that can compare with Him. His dealings with men include and reveal a perfect and complete business policy. From His first sermon up in Nazareth till He ascended into heaven, every word and move was in the line of the highest ideal of practical business. Take His whole plan of salvation, from the time Adam and Eve fell till the last sinner saved shall be within the gates of the New Jerusalem, and every step is marked with the highest type that business can assume or take. There is nothing in all the commercial world which compares with the scheme of redemption, not only in the vastness of its proportions, but in the practical

INTRODUCTION.

workings of its every detail. It is the crystallization of a perfect business scheme. In it Jesus Christ has shown Himself to be, not only the greatest, but the highest type of a business man of whom the world has any knowledge. His great announcement is most emphatically true here, ''I am the light of the world ; he that folio weth me shall not walk in darkness." "I am the way, the truth, and the life."

If we, in our social intercourse, take Him and His life as our pattern, and in the business world transact our business as He dealt and deals with men, we have the remedy for all our commercial and social wrongs at hand ; while business life on earth will have attained its perfection. Elements are in the plan of redemption, which, if applied to our business world, would adjust all our difficulties between labor and capital, the employe and the employer. There is not a good and great principle in business which does not find its perfection in Jesus Christ, neither is there a good and great principle advocated by the working men which does not find its completion in His teachings and conduct.

A judge once said that he owed his great success on the bench to the fact that he stuck close to Moses' Law. Daniel Webster said he got his eloquence from the Bible, and Cassius M. Clay said he learned his beautiful diction from reading the parables of Jesus Christ. So men will never do business right till they study Jesus Christ, and take the plan of redemption and His teachings as a guide in all their affairs, and follow it as the mariner follows the lines marked out on the chart to direct his ship across the sea.

J. N. W.

Cleveland, 0., May 25, 1896.

Chapter I. Parental Love

JpT was a balmy evening in June that Mr. Smith dl sat on the veranda of his pleasant home and said to his wife : "My dear, what do you think of our going to Europe and spending a year with your parents and mine, walking over the old paths we trod a quarter of a century ago?"

"It is just what I have had in mind for a long time," said Mrs. Smith. "It is true that Tommy is only ten and Mary seven ; but John is nearly twenty and has such an old head, we can trust him to take care of the children as wisely as if he were their father. Then Lucy is eighteen, has just graduated, and taking charge of the house for a year will be a good post-graduate course for her ; Charley is fifteen, and ought to begin to learn to take care of himself. I think it is just the thing to do, if you can leave your business."

Mr. Smith replied: "The business is in good shape ; I have been planning for this, and have arranged things so John can manage them, with Charley helping him. We can let them have all the income to divide among them, then the more they make the more they will have ; it will be fine living, and they will have a good time as well as we. Then the

coal bank down at M , which ought to be started, I

will fix so the boys can operate, if they want to ; and if they do they can live like princes, and each one of the children have a nice little bank account when we get back."

Mr. Smith laughed heartily as he thought how happily he could fix his children.

"Your plan is splendid," said Mrs. Smith. "It seems as if it were providential, the way things have fixed themselves, to let us go at this time, and we must not let this opportunity pass.

Mr. Smith felt his heart swell within him as he replied : "This is something I have anxiously looked forward to, when we could make the trip, and see both of our parents alive. You don't know how thankful I feel."

As Mr. Smith uttered these last words, he choked with emotion at the thought of the time when the aged four would receive their children to their arms and homes.

"Well," said Mrs. Smith, "why not be off at once? Let us call in the children and see how it will take with them."

"Go ahead," said Mr. Smith.

The children were called into the parlor and the plans laid before them. Tommy lay on the floor, with his head turned up like a snake, and his little bare feet kicked up, while Mary sat near tickling them with a feather. John sat grave as a judge, with a business air and demeanor worthy a man of twice his years. He grasped the entire plan, took in the whole situation, and advised his parents to go by all means, promisinghe would see to everything while they were gone. Lucy joined heartily with J.ohn, and so did Charley.

At the Smith home, everything from that on, for a fortnight, was hurry and bustle, getting ready for the trip. Every day Mrs. Smith talked with Mary and Tommy about being good little children while their parents were away, telling them they must obey John and Lucy, and not play with bad little children out on the street, and especially, they must not go down to play with the Brown children, saying to Tommy: "You know you always get into a fight every time you go down there." Both Tommy and Mary promised they would not go.

The day came to start, and when the carriage drove up to the house to take Mr. and Mrs. Smith to the train, they kissed their children good-bye, and while John, Lucy and Charley followed down to the carriage door, Tommy and Mary stood on the veranda, and the last look the fond parents got of their little darlings was Tommy and Mary dancing and throwing kisses after them, saying, "Dood-bye, mamma; dood-bye, papa; we'll be dood children while you're done."

As the carriage turned a corner which cut off the view, the strong man's head dropped, while tears sprang from his eyes at the thought that a year would pass before he would see his little cherubs again.

IO JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAX.

Mrs. Smith exclaimed, "Why, you are a bigger baby about those children than I am. You must not feel so, for they will be happy. John will take good care of them, and see that nothing goes wrong."

Mr. Smith looked out of the carriage and tried to get his thoughts on something else, while Mrs. Smith said : " Well, indeed, I don't blame you after all, for if I had not seen you crying, I myself should have cried, and you know I have always said that one baby at a time is enough."

By the time they had reached the station, Mr. Smith's tears were all brushed from his eyes, and the two were apparently as joyful as if they were a quarter of a century younger and on their wedding trip.

The business being left in John's hands, he received all drafts and drew all checks ; for his father had made John's credit as good as his own. John saw there was a fine chance to make money, to make it easy and make it fast. Then, neither Lucy nor Charley knew anything about the coal bank ; and if they did, they could not handle it, so he concluded to say nothing to them about it.

After John had looked carefully over the field, he saw he could pay Charley an extra good salary, and give Lucy an abundant allowance for the house, which would give both of them more money than they ever had before, he would still have more than half of the income of his father's estate left for himself. So he concluded there was no use

PARENTAL LOVE. II

in letting the rest of the children know anything about how large this income was, nor about the coal bank at M .

As John sat at the dinner-table that evening with Lucy and Charley, he said he had been thinking over their father's wishes in regard to his children, and they all knew it was his desire the children might have a good time while he was in Europe. So he told Lucy and Charley that he had concluded to make this sure to them, by giving them a fixed salary or allowance, which should be large, and he would take good care of Tommy and Mary, and get along himself somehow on what was left ; so if any one was short, he would be the one. When John named the salary he would give Charley, Charley declared there was not another boy in the city getting as good a salary as that ; and when he told Lucy the amount she was to have for the running expenses of the house, she said, "That is more than ever mother got from father." Both declared themselves in good fortune, feared John was robbing himself, and felt they were under great obligations to him for his magnanimity and generosity. They often talked together of what a good brother John was, and wondered if any other boy or girl in the city had so fine a brother.

John had life-sized portraits of his father and mother made and hung in the parlor. He purchased a new parlor carpet, took the large front-room upstairs for a library, and bought new books for Lucy and Charley to read. This, however, necessitated the removal of the bed-room of Mary and Tommy to the attic, which Lucy thought would be just as good for children, and if they needed anything in the night, they would be near the hired girl, who would take care of them.

John also sodded the yard where the children had worn off the grass in their play. He then forbade Tommy and Mary going on the grass, or bringing other little children into the yard to play. He also gave strict orders that the house was not to be turned upside down with the children playing in it, or bringing in all the neighbors' children. There was plenty of room for ^hem on the walks and in the kitchen. Lucy very . cheerfully and strictly enforced all these orders for John.

While Lucy and Charley were well pleased with the new turn things had taken, and looked upon John as a benefactor and philanthropist, Mary and Tommy were not so well pleased, and the longer things went on, the greater became their discontent. But neither Lucy nor Charley had any sympathy with their complaining. Let them be good children and John would treat them all right, they said. And so they were set down as being across the path, in the onward march of civilization and the great material improvement which had come to the Smith family.

Said Lucy : " Children are always complaining, and there is no use in paying any attention to them. Let them go off and keep quiet."

Of course, the children went out on the streets and into the alleys, or any place where they could find children to play with. Mary would get so dirty that her face could hardly be seen ; and there was not a week passed that Tommy did not go down to the Brown children and get into trouble. John had a full sense of his authority, and was indignant at the way the children were acting. Both he and Lucy took very high grounds on the question of their parents' orders being enforced and obeyed. John's conscience had troubled him at times, because he was absorbing more than half the income of his father's estate ; but as matters now seemed, he saw the great necessity there was for some one to conserve the interests of these younger children , and the argument seemed to justify all his robbery

Often in the evenings, John, Lucy and Charley would gather their young friends into the library and have a little reading-circle, and John would give an occasional essay on " The Best Ways to Keep Children Off the Streets," and "The Necessity of an Older Brother's Conserving the Wealth of the Parents' Estate when the Father is Absent."

At dinner, Lucy often rehearsed to John the shortcomings of the children for the day. When the dinner was over, John would call the children in, remind them of their mother's last words and shame them, questioning them as to what their father and mother would think of such behavior, and sternly telling them, their mother could not love such naughty children, and if their father were there they would both get a good whipping. Then

Tommy and Mary were sent up to the attic to their little beds as a punishment. They would go and sob and cry themselves to sleep, thinking how their mamma and papa away across the big sea did not love them, and would resolve and resolve again that they would be good children and not go out on the streets to play, and never again go down to the bad Brown children.

So things went on with the natural variations for full a year. One day when John came home to lunch, Lucy took him up to see Mary, who was sick in bed. As soon as John saw her, he exclaimed : " Of all things ! she has the scarlet fever." " Oh!" said Lucy, " what shall we do? We shall be quarantined as soon as the doctor comes ; then you know we have two engagements for the theatre this week, and one night at Christian Endeavor, and Barnum's show is coming next week, and your birthday party will be a week from to-morrow, for which the invitations are already out. Oh, my! what shall we do?"

She had not finished speaking, when Tommy came in, howling at the top of his voice : " Those nasty Brown boys hit me on the nose." The blood was running freely, and the tears were making channels down through the dirt on his cheeks, while his clothes were full of dust and dirt.

The vision of John's boyhood days rose before him in a moment, and in all he never saw himself as such a naughty and disobedient child. With a clear conception of his own virtues, his soul, to him, swelled with righteous indignation as he exclaimed : "I think it is time your father were getting home and taking you in charge. They have stayed away over their year already. You need a good, sound whipping for going down to those hair-brained scapegraces, and I will see to it that you get it when your father comes home. Go up to your bed-room and stay there until I tell you to come down. You have told me often enough you would not go down to Brown's, and still you have gone. You are a little liar."

John turned to Lucy and said: "Annie (the hired girl) is nearly as old as mother, and she was telling me only a few days ago that she had nursed a great many patients at the hospital who had the scarlet fever. We will give Mary into her hands and she will know what to do as well as the doctor. We will keep them up in the attic ; I will get another girl for the kitchen, and we will let nobody know anything about it."

"But," said Lucy, "Tommy, the little rascal, never knows how to keep his mouth shut, and he has shown himself to be a little liar, and he will tell it to all the children in the streets."

" Oh!" replied John, " I will shut him up in the attic with Mary, to watch her when Annie is out, and he can give her drinks and fan her. I will see whether he is going to carry on in the way he has been any longer."

" John, you are a host to plan," said Lucy.

The night came for John's birthday party. All their young friends were present. The hired girl had set the table, and asked Annie to come down to see if it were all right. The rich eatables and the bright light of the chandelier, shining down from above, made everything look inviting enough for a king.

In the meantime, Tommy had slipped down to take a survey of the situation. He kept a sharp lookout for Annie, so she did not see him. The scene was a tempting one to Tommy. He watched till he saw Annie and the girl withdraw to allow the guests to come in ; then he slipped up to the table to get a part of the share which was fairly coming to him and Mary. He pulled off candy and sweet cake until his arms were full, then ran upstairs. But Tommy did not exercise the care of a caterer in the way he removed his part, and so left very visible tracks behind him.

He had barely made his escape, when John, with his best girl on his arm, entered the room, with all the guests following. When they surrounded the table, John and Lucy exchanged looks, said nothing, and both readily divined the cause of the condition of things.

The next morning, while they were at the breakfast table, Annie came in and said, in tender accents, " Mary is much worse, and Tommy is sick also. I am so sorry your father and mother have been delayed at sea."

John laid down his knife and fork, leaned back in his chair and, with an air of superior worth and outraged virtue, said: "Just as I expected. Tommy has foundered on that cake he stole from me last night, and has given it to Mary, and that is what has made her worse. I tell you, he is beginning to be a thief pretty early. I shall not be surprised if he ends on the gallows yet. I think it is time his father were getting home."

Annie saw her uneven position and withdrew without saying anything farther.

Lucy remarked : " Tommy ought to be ashamed of himself," and to herself she wondered how it could be that so nice a young man as John was a brother to so bad a boy as Tommy ; why he could not take pattern from his oldest brother.

Charley listened and took, second-hand, what John and Lucy said, as his opinion. He thought he was doing well and wanted to hold his position, and this was about the extent of Charley's concern.

The next day was the first of August, and in the afternoon the carriage drove up from the depot with Mr. and Mrs. Smith, home from their European trip, looking hearty and well.

Lucy ran to the carriage and pulled her mother out; her father alighted just long enough to kiss her and say : " Are the boys at the office? " Lucy replied that they were. "I will go for them," said Mr. Smith, " and be back in a few minutes." As he got into the carriage, he said to the driver, " Now let the horses step along," and away they went.

Mrs. Smith, with Lucy, went into the house ; as soon as in, she said, "Where are my babies?" Lucy told her how Mary and Tommy had been naughty children ; how they had disobeyed her and played on the streets, and Tommy had gone down to the Brown children and John and she had done their best to make them keep away, but could not, and now Mary had the scarlet fever, was in her bed up in the attic, and they had shut Tommy up along with her to make him behave, but he came down and stole candy and sweet cake off the table at John's birthday party, and it had made them both sick ; he was getting to be one of the worst boys — " Before Lucy had time to finish this sentence, Mrs. Smith was flying up the stairs to the attic.

As she opened the door of the room where they lay, the hot and sickening air struck her, and it went to her soul like a pall. She slipped to the bedside of Mary, and knelt down over her, saying " Oh ! mamma's sick little darling!" and began kissing her. The little faint voice said, "Mamma!" and the weak, thin arm tried to raise itself to hug her, but the strength failed it. Annie, kneeling beside Mrs. Smith, said softly : " She is very sick." The child gasped. That was her last ; and Mary was .dead in the arms of her mother.

The eyes of Mrs. Smith looked like glass. Not a tear was in them ; and she condemned herself because she could not cry, asking herself if her heart had become a stone. She turned to Tommy, and there the little fellow lay, covered all over with

PARENTAL LOVE. IO,

scarlet rash. " O mamma," he cried, " Tommy is glad to see you !" and, as she kissed him, she began to cry, and her bursting agony had some relief. Tommy went on, saying : "I have been a bad boy while you were gone, mamma. I went down and played with the Brown children. I didn't mind you, mamma, and John had to shut me up here in the garret with Mary, and I got sick. Will papa whip me, mamma, when he comes?" " Whip you, my child?" said Mrs. Smith. "No, no, no!" and the strength of a strong man came to her. She grasped him in her arms, took him up, carried him down-stairs, saying, " No, darling, no ! You are papa and mamma's sweet little cherub ; and they prayed so often for their little Tommy while they were gone. Mamma won't leave her little darling another minute in this hot room." *" Though he was as scarlet," he "was white as snow" in his mother's eyes; "though he was red like crimson," he " was as wool," to hen

When down-stairs, she laid hirh on the couch in the sitting-room, kneeling down and bending over him, with her gaze intently fixed upon him.

During this time, Mr. Smith had gone to the office, saw that business was in good shape, and returned with the boys, entering the house a few minutes after Mrs. Smith had come down. John had called his father's attention to the fine sod in the yard, and as they came through the parlor, asked

* Isaiah i., 18.

him to look at the beautiful portraits he had put in the parlor.

But Mr. Smith's eye caught Tommy lying sick on the couch, and said to his wife, "How is this?" She whispered, while gently stroking her child's locks of hair, "He has the scarlet fever!" The strong man, weak as a child, stooped down beside his boy, while Tommy said, " Are you going to whip me, papa? John said you would. You don't love Tommy, do you, papa, because he went down to the Brown children? "

Mr. Smith, thinking the child was delirious, made no answer, and said : " Where is Mary? "

Mrs. Smith tried to speak, but could not. In a moment, from her suffocating grief, in broken syllables, came, "Go — to — the — attic!" The accents of her voice spoke volumes to her husband, and to the attic he quickly went, where he found faithful Annie sitting by the dead form of his child. He demanded what this all meant ; and Annie told him all, as Lucy had told it to her, of John's operations. But, however she might tell it, Mr. Smith saw to the end of all that had happened and been done by John.

He took the dead body in his arms and carried it down-stairs, holding it tightly to his breast. As soon as he reached the foot of the stairs, he said : " John, I command you to tell me what you have been doing while we were away." John began telling his father what a bad boy Tommy had been, and how he and Mary would play out on the streets, contrary to his and their mother's orders ; that they had gotten scarlet fever by it, and he was obliged to keep Tommy shut up in the attic, to keep him away from the Brown children, and so on. The father could listen no longer and broke in upon him, saying: " I left you here in my place with these your younger brothers and sisters. I entrusted you, my oldest and strongest child, with my property, and upon you I conferred the power of my name. This was done, not that you might take to yourself the greater part of the income of my estate, but that you, as my minor son, might enjoy your fair, equitable portion of it, and have the honor of standing at the head of the family and distributing to the rest of the children their portion. You have been unfaithful to your trust. You have brought death to our family and sorrow to our souls. I never can trust you again. You have sinned against your mother's being and against your father's love. These little ones are part of our flesh and parcel of our blood. How can we abide you as our son any longer? You must depart from our home and house."

And the mother spoke in trembling accents, yet in all the firmness of her soul : " Mary is dead and Tommy is dying, and it is all your fault. I will go down to the grave to my child mourning."

John went out from the presence of his parents with the *curse of Cain upon him, forever to be a

* Genesis iv., 16.

stranger to his father's house, on account of his selfishness.

In like manner, Jesus represents the judge of the world at the great assizes, as saying " unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels : for I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me not in : naked, and ye clothed me not : sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me. " *

As soon as the storm of indignation had quieted, Lucy began apologizing for John, saying he had been so kind to them, and that he had fixed up the house so nicely, and given her more money than she ever had before, and Gharley had better wages than any other boy in town. John had tried to make Tommy and Mary be good children, and often said he would give them more money, but he was afraid they would buy too much candy with it and get sick ; and then, Tommy might learn to smoke, if he had money to buy cigars ; that John had fixed up the parlor better than it ever had been before, and she thought Mr. and Mrs. Smith ought to take some notice of the fine portraits John had had made of them. Then, John bought fine books, and got Charley to read lots of evenings, instead of going down into the city after dinner. John had given to the church more than any young man in it, and often said if he became rich, he would like to give their church the finest pipe-organ in the city, and she believed if he obtained riches, he would make a philanthropist.