RELIGION IN THE MARKET-PLACE.
Let not the design of these chapters be forgotten.
There are few opinions more prevalent among men, than that religion is to be attended to only at certain places or on set occasions. While some entirely neglect it, and live from day to day without one solemn thought of God or the soul, others would attend to it only at fixed seasons, or when established usage calls them. At other times, religion is reckoned an intruder. It interferes with the pursuits, or it interrupts the pleasures of men. It must therefore be kept in its proper place, without venturing to appear in the ordinary business or the common intercourse of life.
The Romanist, accordingly, hurries to Mass; and that over, he hastens away to his holiday, his folly, and his sports. The formalist, whether Protestant or Romanist, complies with his routine, appears at church, or tells his beads, and then dismisses religion from his thoughts. The young leave religion to the old. The old often postpone its claims, till attention to it is useless, unless it could operate like a charm; and thus the one thing needful is the last thing that some will permit to obtain any ascendency over their minds.
THE ALIMENT OF THE SOUL.
But instead of adopting such maxims, all who are in earnest about the world to come have felt, that just as the body needs the vital air at all times, the soul at all times needs the guidance of truth; THE
ALIMENT
OF THE
SOUL. or as the body may die, in the twinkling of an eye, if it be deprived of that which is appointed by God to keep it in life, so the soul cleaves to the dust—it becomes dead to the noblest of all objects, even to God and eternity—when it is not constantly fed or constantly stimulated by the truth which connects us with Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being.
Under the deep conviction of that, we have tried to show how the truth which the Spirit teaches in the Word of God, should be mingled with all that we do. Far from leaving it out of view for a breath, it is a party to all our transactions; it should be a counsellor in all our difficulties, and a guide in all the relations of life. The heart, the home, the workshop; the place of public resort, as well as the place where no eye sees, and no ear hears, but God’s, should find us evermore accompanied by the truth, evermore subject to its control, while it directs our thoughts, our words, and deeds, according to the will of God.
We are now, then, to contemplate Christianity in the Market-place, or the place where business is wont to be done. Epithets of contempt have been applied to us as a nation, because of our busy engrossments in the countless departments of buying, and selling, and getting gain; and it cannot but be important to consider the maxims which should guide us in such pursuits.
Now, it is one of the glories of our faith, that it makes ample provision for all the activities of life. Yet, under pretext of being devout beyond the standard of ordinary men, there have been some who fled to deserts, and dwelt in dens and caves of the earth. Professing to seek a closer walk with God, or more ample scope for the culture of the Christian graces, they have forsaken the duties of life, and made themselves useless to society, as if indolence were a virtue, or inactivity a fruit or a proof of true religion.
THE MERCHANT PRINCES.
But any one who will merely glance at the Word of God, may see that such opinions find no sanction there. Far from encouraging inactivity, or exhorting us to forsake the post of duty, and retire to loneliness and seclusion, that Word expressly prohibits such a course. It tells us not to be slothful in business. It says that what our hands find to do, we should do it with all our might. It assures us that we must study to be quiet, and do our own business, and work with our own hands. It adds, that if any man will not work, neither shall he eat. It sets a brand upon those who “learn to be idle, who wander about from house to house, not only idle, but tattlers also.” In short, religion, as it lies in the Bible, stands at our side in the place of business, and says, “Be not slothful here;” and adds, “It is the hand of the diligent which maketh rich.”—THE
MERCHANT
PRINCES.While we gaze on the merchant princes on the Exchange of London, when some exciting rumour has arrived, some war been proclaimed or threatened, or while some mercantile crash is impending, or some millionaire bankruptcy just announced—we cannot but feel that if men retain their religion amid these excitements, they are religious according to the highest standard that earth can ever know. Not the recluse, not the man whose life is idle, and whose duties are tame and domestic, can display the loftiest style of Christianity; but the man who holds fast his integrity amid the activities of life, and embodies in his practice the scriptural injunction, “Be not slothful in business.”
THE ENTHRONEMENT OF SELF.
True, this maxim is often more than obeyed; business absorbs, business agitates, business ruins millions. Surrendering themselves without a check to its engrossments, they are swallowed up by overmuch care, and socially and religiously become wrecks, though they may pile up gold in heaps. How many in this land are making gold their god, and fine gold their confidence, we need not try to tell. But to correct that tendency, the word of truth has commanded our men of busy lives not merely to be active, but, moreover, to be “serving the Lord” by their activity. It is not activity for the sake of amassing wealth; it is not activity merely that we may stand among the foremost in the market-place, or be able, as some have been, to give laws to kings and empires, to make peace or to declare war. THE
ENTHRONEMENT
OF SELF. That is not religion; it is the enthronement of self. We are to serve the Lord even in our business. His will is to be our will there, as much as when we are upon our knees before him. The objects to which he points are to be pursued by us; and thus, amid the scenes of busiest occupation, where much that is secular may tend to disturb, or much that is sordid to debase, the man of activity is also to be the man of piety and of Christian principle. Religion is not to be kept for set times and set occasions; it is not to be left behind us when we leave our homes: nay, as the Lord is in every place, the fear of him should everywhere preside.
MAMMON.
When the Saviour said, “I pray not that thou wouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil that is in the world,” he not merely uttered a prayer, but, moreover, announced a rule for regulating duty; and they who have imbibed the spirit of His words, understand the religion of Jesus—a religion most exquisitely adapted to man on earth, a religion at once of ever-doing activity, and of faithful serving the Lord amid it all. There are, no doubt, snares and perils beyond what can be counted to the souls of men, in the engrossments of business. In commerce, through all its branches, as it appears in our land and day, there is much to deaden the soul, much to eraze the very thought of God; MAMMON. and hence Mammon is the only god of many. But the reason of that is, not that business is essentially godless, but that men prefer God’s gifts to himself. Because he is forgotten, thousands are ensnared; they are as completely entombed in worldliness, as the corpse that was yesterday interred is entombed in the deep grave where it lies.
PRINCIPLE.
On the one hand, then, some are diligent in their business; but they forget to serve the Lord, and so their business becomes the grave of the soul. On the other hand, some would serve Him; but they keep that service apart from their business: they are as worldly there, as selfish, as ready to grasp and to amass, as if responsibility to God could be shut up in the Bible after a passage of it has been formally perused. PRINCIPLE. But the Christian merchant comes in between these two. In the one hand he takes the clause, “Be not slothful in business;” in the other he takes the words, “Serving the Lord.” He unites them in his life; that is, he takes religion from the Bible; and instead of separating what God has joined—namely, diligence and godliness—that man is perfectly convinced, because the Spirit of God is his teacher, that success would be a curse, that thousands added to thousands would only augment his woe, were he to leave the will of God out of view in the place of public resort.
With this general truth before us, then, if we be Christians at all, we must be Christians everywhere, let us consider some Counsels tending to make us Christians, according to the standard of the Bible. How may I assuredly retain my Christianity in the Market-place, in the haunts of Commerce, or among its busy men? An answer to that question may serve as a guide through what is, in truth, a deep and dangerous morass.
WICKEDNESS AND FOLLY, ONE.
THE WOE OF THE WICKED.
And the first Counsel we would announce is this: God is a party in all our transactions in the Market-place; we are either serving him or sinning against him in all that we do. It is to be feared, indeed, that many forget this simple truth amid their manifold engrossments. They forget that the God of justice is a party in men’s unjust proceedings; that the God of truth is a witness to all their falsehood; that He who cannot look on sin is present at every act, detecting fraud and deceit wherever they appear. In very emphatic language, men thus make the Holy One “serve with their sins;” He supplies the power, the skill, the reason, which they pervert into instruments of iniquity against him and fraud upon their fellow-men. But shunning all this, it should be our rooted maxim in the Market-place, and everywhere besides, that that Holy One is a party in all that we do; he is either served or sinned against. We cannot swerve from truth, we cannot violate justice, we cannot let go our integrity, without forsaking Him. It should, therefore, be as firmly rooted in our convictions as the most simple moral truth, that whatever dishonours God cannot benefit us. WICKEDNESS
AND FOLLY,
ONE. It should be written on the conscience as with a pen of iron upon a rock, that the man who expects true success in violating the eternal principles of right and wrong, is not merely wicked, but foolish. The man who expects to prosper by “glossy fraud,” has already inflicted a sore degradation on his moral nature. Even though he may be lifted up by wealth to sit among princes, he is, in the eyes of God, a degraded and an outcast creature. THE WOE
OF THE
WICKED. He has sold his soul for what must soon be wrung from his grasp. He has bowed down to an idol as senseless, and as unable to bless him, as the stone god of the Hindoo devotee. Though a world were in league to prove the contrary, ungodly gain wraps up a curse in it; and the larger the pile, the more deadly or crushing are its effects. Those were solemn words which Eliphaz spoke to Job: “I saw him taking root, but I cursed his habitation.”16
Let God, then, be recognised as a party in all that is done. Be it our maxim, in the market-place as well as on our knees: “Thou, God, seest me;” and it will at once fortify and warn us. He who forgets that simple principle in our busy day, is like one who casts the pilot overboard when the tempest is rising.
The suggestion now offered would at once sweep away those petty encroachments which pass in the world almost without rebuke, but which are an offence to the Holy One. It seemed a small and venial thing to Eve to do what she did, and to Adam to follow her example; but that little thing dragged the world to ruin. And so before God, offences deemed venial by man are seen in the defilement and the hatefulness of sin. Hence the call to act under the divine eye—to adopt the divine standard—to make God a party in all our proceedings. His holiness, his justice and truth, should at once repress the unprincipled and encourage the pure; and man would then be made upright towards man by being made right with God.
MAKING HASTE TO BE RICH.
But side by side with that, we must place a second Counsel, not less needed than the other—Watch with care, lest the engrossments of business should so accumulate as to overlay and crush the godliness of the soul. Amid the pressure of times like ours, this is one of the greatest perils of the market-place: it is destroying its tens of thousands. MAKING
HASTE
TO BE
RICH. Men eagerly plunge into speculation after speculation. They try to extend, to ramify, and engross, till you might suppose they have a home in city after city; nay, in kingdom after kingdom. Not contented with the gains, the competency, or the honest rewards of what they can easily overtake or personally control, many make such haste to be rich, that an empire is too limited for their plans. In their zeal, they embark in scheme after scheme; they wrap themselves round with entanglement after entanglement, till, in some cases, the ends of the earth are not too remote for their desires to reach.
TRUE ENTERPRISE:
Now, far be it from us to place restrictions where the only wise God places none; far be it from us to limit enterprise, as if all should be domestic, or run in the channels of home. It would be hindering, not helping Christianity in the Market-place, to define and circumscribe where its Author has not defined. The very sea—that “highway of the nations” which surrounds our island—would rebuke the attempt. Godliness is not to be confined in monasteries, or even to the domestic circle; for if that were the case, then godliness could not be designed for man as man. It would apply only to a fragment of his nature, instead of diffusing the wisdom of Heaven over it all. TRUE
ENTERPRISE: But if it be that godliness which is the result of grace, and not that which is only a phase of monasticism, there is not a scene, however homely, where it may not preside; nor an enterprise, however grand, which it may not direct. It is only a fragment of religion, or of the truth as it is in Jesus, which would leave the counting-house, or any sphere, without heavenly direction.
—ITS LIMITS.
The exhortation, “Be not slothful in business,” then, opens a wide door for active energy; and we make no attempt to shut it. But still, —ITS
LIMITS. there is only a certain length to which any man can proceed without sinning, amid these engrossments and accumulated cares. Bear witness families neglected—family altars thrown down—early hopes blighted—early religion erazed from the soul—as speculations and engagements increase. We have no right to laden ourselves with a multitude of cares such as shall overlay, or supplant, or endanger the truth of God in the heart. Every moment may be one of high-toned integrity between man and man; every transaction may be presided over by purest equity: in the market-place, a merchant prince might blush to be even suspected of the mean, the fraudulent, or the deceptive. But what if these moments and these transactions, so pure in appearance, be so numerous or so engrossing, as to prevent attention to the high concerns of eternity and the soul? What if my mind and my body be so worn out or worn down by these protracted hours of merchandise, that the things which belong to my eternal peace are neglected, or pushed from their proper place, which is the first? Am I not sinning against my soul and my God, by such exhausting engrossments? O! how many are ruined—ruined not by dishonesties in business, but by over-devotion to it! not by defrauding a neighbour, but by defrauding their own soul alike of all time and all taste for attending to the one thing needful!
THE PERILS OF BUSINESS.
We plead, let it be remembered, for no inactivity, for there are perils in idleness as well as amid the cares of business. If the latter destroy by crushing, the former wastes by rusting. But our urgency converges upon this point—THE
PERILS OF
BUSINESS.men ought not so to plunge into this world’s engrossments—so to be entangled by this world’s cares—so to laden themselves with this world’s clay—as to leave neither liking, nor time, nor strength, for fervour of spirit in serving the Lord—“Inasmuch as ye did it not unto me,” will tarnish the glory of all such doings. Every moment as it passes, in the life of some busy men, may be a moment of high-souled integrity between man and man; and yet there is danger, lest all the moments summed together should be one long act of complicated robbery—a robbery of God, because he was forgotten—a robbery of the soul, because it was neglected for things which often melt as we grasp them—a robbery of those dependent on us for religious guidance and example, because we are strangers at home, or, when we appear there, it is rather as the careworn speculator or the hoarding miser, than as the kindly, genial, sympathizing husband, father, brother, friend.
THE PERILS OF BUSINESS.
We know that it is the golden maxim of some, that religion must give way to business. We have been told by one who could stand unabashed on the Exchange, that “God did not expect us to be too strict in these things;” and swayed by that maxim, if religion do not give way at the bidding of cupidity, its control is boldly disowned. THE
PERILS OF
BUSINESS. Now, we need not add, that the man who has adopted such an opinion has at once dismissed the Word of God from his counsels, and consented to forego the use of reason in the highest of all its spheres—he has laid his soul, a manacled victim, on the altar of Mammon. That man is not seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; that is, he is deliberately setting aside one of the simplest, plainest, and most unequivocal injunctions contained in the Word of the Supreme.—It is well known that, among the ancient heathens, the god of traffic was also the god of fraud. The Romans, moreover, had a goddess of thieves, whom one of their poets thus addresses:—
O fair Laverna, grant me power to cheat,
And yet appear arrayed in saintly guise;
Let sable night enshroud my deep deceit,
And clouds conceal my fraud from prying eyes.17
—And is there no reason to fear that that spirit has been perpetuated to modern times?
Now, in these remarks, we have just been enforcing a trite, but profound maxim, “What is a man profited, though he could gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul?” Surely men buy gold at too high a price, when their immortal spirits are given in exchange for it. Success in such a case is a terrible disaster, and far better a mercantile crash than eternal ruin. To give ourselves up to the devoted pursuit of the world, and to secure what we pursue, while God and heaven are forsaken, is a calamity to be deplored through all eternity. Better far the cross and the disappointment; better far the shattered hope and the world’s neglect, than to sit with princes and to forfeit heaven—to rank among those whose gold cannot be counted, and yet to be poor, and wretched, and miserable in the high estimate of eternity—There is an animal which strikes the arm with feebleness the moment it is touched. The muscles are benumbed, the sense of feeling is for the time destroyed, and the affected parts are as if they had been struck by lightning, and in a similar way, do this world’s cares benumb or stupify the soul. Its desire for the good and the pure, and its power to enjoy them, are at once destroyed by intense engrossment with the world’s cares; and he who has not felt and lamented the effects of such engrossment, should beware, lest his want of feeling be the result of his want of life.
THE PREVALENCE OF THE FALSE:
INSTANCES.
As a Counsel which we believe to be pre-eminently needed, we observe next, that the man of integrity and Christian principle, will, in the Market-place, THE
PREVALENCE
OF THE
FALSE: comply with none of the conventional maxims of business which are based upon the false.—Were it our object to enter into these things in detail, it would not be difficult to show to what an amazing extent the false, the pretended, the deceptive, now enter into the business of our commercial or mercantile community. It must be enough to say, that the father of lies has taken possession of ten thousand points in business, and often holds them all at the expense of integrity and truth. INSTANCES. Lies are spoken; lies are acted; deceptions are practised; and conscience is all the while prevented from lifting any effectual protest, by the fact that such things are common. Even those channels of public opinion which do not usually adopt the Scriptures of truth as their standard, confess their amazement at the Jesuitical want of ingenuousness, or the incredible amount of dishonesty, which signalizes even those who move in the highest spheres. Descending, that spirit has taken possession of other classes—it has actually come to pass, that he is deemed simple who is upright, or punctilious who is honest. Nay more, in defending this state of moral degeneracy, there are some who do not scruple to quote the Word of the God of truth. “Be not righteous overmuch,” is a favourite passage with some, as if it gave any countenance to him who seeks wealth by disreputable means—by calling that all silk which he knows to be partly made of cotton, or that genuine which he knows to be adulterated, or that perfect which he knows to be defective.—Would that it were superfluous to dwell upon such subjects—that we never had occasion to refer to them and to the Church of God in the same breath! “Serving the Lord”—that clause should banish for ever all such things from the practice and the ways of men professing to be Christians, and if they are not banished, we can picture nothing so likely to make religion an offence, and a Christian profession a subject of scorn, to honest worldly men.
Farther, we have been told that there are some in business who will not credit those who make a profession of godliness. They deem that profession a cloak, and they either tear it off or despise it. Now, we reckon that, to a great extent, just a display of the worldly man’s hatred to the restraints and the sanctities of religion. He knows that such a profession upon his lips would be hypocrisy, and he ignorantly deems it the same in others. Hence his contempt for a religious profession—his distrust of all who make it. Yet, is there no pretext afforded to that worldly man for the opinions which he holds? If those professing religion are known to imitate examples, or to adopt practices, and act upon maxims which religion repudiates—if they be as grasping as those who make no such pretensions as they do, are they not cheering on the ungodly in their unchristian career? Are they not doing all that they can to assure the worldly man that his views of religion are correct—that it is a pretence, hypocrisy, and a name?
THE BELIEVER’S OBLIGATIONS.
For these reasons, we return to say, that all compliance with customs founded upon what is known to be false, should be shunned in business by a man of God. All should be transparent as sunlight with him. He should never forget, that to escape detection is very different from being honest; and that the man who has committed himself to some course opposed to what is pure, or lovely, or of good report, must either trample conscience out, or endure its gnawings, as fable says Prometheus endured the vulture. There are temptations, we grant, in a state of society like ours, where gold is not merely a standard of value in the market-place, but often the standard of character among men. Withal, however, I am not bound to be rich; THE
BELIEVER’S
OBLIGATIONS. but I am bound not to bring an evil report upon the Christian name. I am not bound to remain in a certain sphere, and there draw a certain revenue; but I am bound not to sin. I am not bound to retain my position at the expense of conscience; but I am bound not to cheer on a covetous world to ruin by sharing its ungodliness or smiling upon its falsehood. Nay, by the grace of God, we are to hold fast our integrity. We are to say, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” to the most plausible pretext for sinning; and if there be few among our merchant princes who act on such maxims—if they be uncommon in the Market-place—that is because few go to the Word of God for their standard of duty—few, with meekness and reverence to the Holy One, combine in action these three clauses: “Not slothful in business”—“Fervent in spirit”—“Serving the Lord.” “One is your master, even Christ.” To him we are responsible in every relation; and that responsibility is discharged only when we remember the words: “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”
But we have only broken ground in regard to Christianity in the Market-place.
THE STANDARD.
It is a universal law, that every soul of man must have an object to pursue. The ambitious man has his object: he pursues it; and if he succeed in his pursuit, he sinks into the grave, crushed perhaps, like Tarpeia of old, by the weight of his success. And the covetous man has his object: he embarks his whole soul in the pursuit; and while a thousand who strive with him fail or are beggared, he who succeeds is perhaps the most signally wretched of them all. And the lover of pleasure has his object of pursuit: he dismisses the fear of God, and, like one who is ambitious of wretchedness, he drinks up iniquity, though along with it he drinks up poison to his soul. THE
STANDARD. In a word, the fool and the wise man, the young and the old, the ignorant and the learned, all have some master object to pursue. That object may involve destruction, for it may be sinful; or it may tend to dignify and ennoble, for it is pure and holy; but whatever be its character, it is a law in man’s nature, that, from the child amused with its toy, up to the hoary patriarch tottering forward to the grave, man must have something to fill and to engross his mind.
THE BIBLE’S LIGHT.
THE
BIBLE’s
LIGHT. Now, the Word of God, which is so exquisitely adapted to man, takes that great law fully into account; and we advert to that again, because it furnishes an opportunity for repeating, that that Word does not repress man’s activity—it only tries to give it a right direction: it does not leave man without a pursuit—it only presents him with one which is worthy of his immortal nature. Knowing that man wishes to advance or to rise, the Bible puts a light into his hand, and tells him to be the heir of God, a joint-heir with Christ. Knowing that man seeks to accumulate and amass, the Bible tells of unsearchable riches and treasures in heaven. Knowing that man’s strongest impulse is to seek his own happiness, the Bible perfectly responds to that, and offers the very peace of God: it points to a home of everlasting sunshine, without a tear, without one solitary want. There is thus no attempt to suppress, but only to direct, man’s aspirations. Nothing that God gave to man is to be extinguished: all is to be sanctified and sublimed.
THE UNIVERSAL LAW.
To make this plain, we observe that all are familiar with the power exercised over the soul by any new object or new pursuit. Begin with the earlier years of infancy. See a little child engrossed with his toy. His whole soul is absorbed by it; for a time it is his world. But present him with some new object; the former is speedily discarded, while the new engrosses the mind as the old had done. Or pass onward from childhood to youth. THE
UNIVERSAL
LAW. There also you see the same law prevailing. Mind is never left a blank. The old is discarded, but it is for the sake of the new; and man thus flits from object to object, the last being always the ascendant. Or pass upward to still graver years, and there also the same law prevails. One pursuit, one passion, one object of interest after another sways the heart, alternately expelled and expelling from the soul. The love of God in a converted soul supersedes the supreme love of the world. The pleasures of godliness take the place of the pleasures of sin. The power of the world to come overmasters the power of a present evil world; and thus a wise and exquisite law guides us in religion—a law as simple in its operation as that which keeps the planets in their orbits.
REASON AND RELIGION AT ONE.
Now, in accordance with that law, our next Counsel is, that the Christian in the Market-place, should never forget that he is not forbidden to seek earthly things at all; he is only forbidden to seek them first. The Saviour just wished man to prefer what should be preferred—to put eternity before time, and God before man, and the soul before the body; and wherever men have escaped from the control of blind passion, REASON
AND
RELIGION
AT ONE. such a maxim must be approved for its wisdom. To believe that there is both a God and a soul, and yet seek some ephemeral thing before either or both, is surely to outrage reason, as well as to turn aside from the plainest maxims of religion. On the other hand, he who sets the Lord before him has adopted a course which will more than realize the fable of Midas, who turned all that he touched into gold.
And who can doubt that confidence placed or preference given anywhere but to God, will blight and wither all at last? Who can doubt that the accumulated thousands of many who name Christ’s name are their god? They seek happiness there. They find all their enjoyment there. These thousands are their rock, their confidence, and their high tower. They not merely seek them first, they seek them exclusively. The portion of their heart is there as completely as the confidence of the Hindoo upon Shiva, or of the Romanist upon Mary. It is thus that God is dethroned, and thus that man’s blossom often goes up like the dust from the midst of his idolatrous confidence.
EQUIVOCATIONS.
But another maxim which should guide us in business, may be thus expressed.—In the Market-place, EQUIVOCATIONS. never forget what is due to your Christian profession. We may forget it, but the world will not; nay, we have seen how prompt men are to condemn us for our oblivion. We may plunge into the world as other men do. Deceived by our own hearts or by the hollow maxims which prevail around us, we may lose sight of the distinction between the frauds of men and the truths of God. But though we may forget to seek first the kingdom of God, the world does not forget that we profess to seek it first. Nay, it is lynx-eyed to detect our pretences, and eager to point the finger of scorn at our unmasked inconsistency if we be inconsistent. The world feels that it needs some countenance in its oblivion of God; and it is cheered, encouraged, or a little more at ease, when Christians are oblivious like itself. As we have already seen, there are words spoken, there are deeds done, in many departments of business, which are unequivocally false—describe them to an unsophisticated little child, and he will tell you at once “it is a lie.” Yet it is well known that gentle names are current for such forms of deception, as well as for some of our household arrangements. Glozing pretexts are employed to cover and conceal them, and the uneasy conscience, in spite of common habit, is betrayed by the fetches which are thus made. Even a worldly man’s conscience would start, at least at first, were such things distinctly called fraud, or over-reaching, or a lie. Palliating epithets are therefore thrown over them, like gaudy trappings upon a coffin; and, then, as if a gentle name could conceal an unprincipled thing, men barter for gain the concerns of the kingdom of God. They often value that kingdom at less than Judas did, when he sold its King for thirty pieces of silver.
CONSISTENCY.
Now, all who would be Christians in the Market-place should dismiss and frown down such practices. Remembering what is due to our Christian profession, they should beware lest a stumbling-block be laid in the way of those who watch for a believer’s halting, and are happy when he falls. The progress of missionaries in foreign lands is often impeded by the ungodliness of men called Christians; and care should be taken lest similar impediments exist at home. Let no man say that his conversation is in heaven, while he is manifestly grovelling in the dust. Far rather disown the holy name, than drag it down into the fearful pit and the miry clay. Be it remembered again, we do not plead for inactivity; we would limit no enterprise which pure religion sanctions. But neither would we forget for a breath, that the man who names Christ’s name must adopt Christ’s holy maxims, or that man is at once deceiving the world and betraying the truth of God. Unjustly to benefit ourselves at the expense of another, is to prove that we have not yet learned God’s holy law, and still less the Saviour’s pure and perfect gospel. CONSISTENCY. The world-side of our religion should therefore be watched with the utmost care; and, amid our daily doings in the market-place, it should often be our thought, I am a Christian, and cannot act upon the world’s unholy maxims. I am a Christian, and must love my neighbour as myself; I must do to others as I wish others to do to me. I am a Christian, and can smile no connivance upon that which nailed my Redeemer to a tree. No matter though the transgression be small; a small sin ruined the world. No matter though it be common; so is eternal ruin. No matter though men reckoned upright do it; their uprightness is a pretence before Him who looks on the heart; and it is because few act upon these plain, decided maxims, that Christ’s people are still but a little flock compared with the teeming myriads of world-adoring men.
THE CHRISTIAN.
THE
CHRISTIAN. And the same maxim should guide us in all respects as well as in regard to gain. Am I one of the merchant princes whose ample stores are crowded with youth dependent on me for bread, and helping to enrich me by their industry or skill? Then I am to remember my duty to ward off, as far as is in my power, all that would corrupt or debase them. Not merely a regard to my own interests, but a regard to the souls of those to whom I stand related, should constrain me to this; and if one among these crowds be dishonest or disreputable, I am to take care that his contagion do not spread; that neither my property on the one hand, nor the souls of my dependants on the other, suffer at his hands. I may be deceived, but I dare not connive at deception. To raise the moral tone, I must give time for personal culture and for the training of principle. I must myself set the example. I must countenance and encourage it. Instead of grinding the faces of the dependent, I am to do them good in the highest sense of all. Instead of amassing wealth by the sacrifice of consciences and souls, I am to honour all men.—The man who acts thus is a benefactor to society: he is elevating his fellow-mortals: he is blessed, and made a blessing.
THE CONSECRATION OF GAIN.
THE
CONSECRATION
OF GAIN. Consecrate all your gains to God—is another maxim enforced by Christianity in the Market-place. The silver and the gold are his. His is the power which enables us to collect them, and they are all to be laid, along with ourselves, upon his altar. The wisest man our world ever saw said, “Honour the Lord with thy substance.”
Now, this suggestion touches one of the topics which stand most in need of enforcement in an age and a community like ours.—It were needless to tarry to tell how the sin of covetousness is eating into the hearts of men, how greedily they run after gain, and make haste to be rich. The wrestler’s arena, or the racer’s circus of old, never was crowded with more eager or more panting competitors than our marts of merchandise now. Nor need we pause to tell again what degrading disclosures are made, from time to time, and that in the highest spheres, regarding the withering effects of this headlong pursuit. In cases not a few, our boasted mercantile honour, and our integrity as a nation of merchants, have been proved, with painful plainness, to be as weak to restrain man’s passion for gold as a thread of gossamer to bind a ravening lion.
THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA.
Such exposures, then, and such scenes, are well fitted to warn us to consecrate all we have to God, both in the getting and the using. If the riches of the world have the image and superscription of CÆsar, the Christian’s should bear the stamp of the King of kings. There is no scriptural anathema against riches—nay, every gift of God is good in itself; but there are countless anathemas against riches acquired by fraud, or spent without seeking the direction or the blessing of God. The Christian in the Market-place is thus taught to use the world as not abusing it, or not to grasp at what may bite like a serpent and sting like an adder. He thus learns to verify what was said of Tyre of old, “Her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the Lord; it shall not be treasured nor laid up.” THE
ALPHA
AND THE
OMEGA. While many never think of God—for one solemn thought of him would dash all their schemes; while self is the centre, the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, of many an adventurer, the Christian will try to gather wealth as his God directs, in channels which his God can bless.
A SCRIPTURAL CONTRAST.
We repeat it; we are permitted to use the world; for there is nothing unnatural, or extreme, or ascetic in the Word of God. We are permitted to use the world; but it is only upon the condition that we do not abuse it; and surely he abuses it who defers to the world more than to God; who adopts the world’s maxims, and discards God’s; who grasps the world’s riches, but is poor toward God; who trembles at the world’s frown, but mocks the majesty, the truth, and the justice of God. A
SCRIPTURAL
CONTRAST. O, never let the Christian fear to be resolutely honest—his God will provide. He should be encouraged by thinking that, amid all our moral distemper, the world is under the control of a king who will make his laws respected. Baffled we may sometimes be in the world’s headlong career; but it is well, it is best, that we should be so. He who sees the end from the beginning, and who brings order out of confusion, is doing all things well. He says: “I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay-tree: Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.” That is one side of the picture: the other is, “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace.”
And who has not seen this verified? Men whose hearts the Lord has opened, so that they gave their silver and their gold in thousands, tell us that the more they give, when it is to the Lord, the more are they blessed. That is, “they cast their bread upon the waters, and find it after many days.” “They honour the Lord with their substance, and their barns are filled with plenty.” “They scatter, and yet increase.” “The liberal soul is made rich.” “They lend unto the Lord,” and receive it back with usury.
FINANCIAL CRISES.
FINANCIAL
CRISES. On the other hand, from time to time the Mighty One protests, in his providence, against the headlong and unprincipled pursuit of wealth. What are our financial crises, our commercial crashes, our bankruptcies in stunning succession and surprising amount, what our unemployed labourers, what our beggared merchants, but just a providential corrective to our cupidity? These things occur almost with the precision of system. They can be predicted like an eclipse; their causes are seen and read of all men; and yet, unwarned and untaught, they make haste to be rich, till airy structures and nominal treasures melt away into air, leaving only poverty, perhaps shame and disgrace, as their residuum. The God who has, with a wisdom as unvarying as it is profound, made sin self-corrective, thus vindicates his own laws. Were his Sabbaths observed, our production would be less, and stagnation prevented. Were our merchandise holiness to the Lord, our periodical gluts would be prevented by wiser measures than now prevail. Godliness would thus be great gain. The widow’s cruse and barrel would be a better portion, because blessed by God, than the riches which, ever on the wing, are ever fluttering for their flight.18
ABRAHAM AND LOT.
It is thus, then, that God over all proves, to our sad experience, that we forsake our own mercies by forgetting Him in the Market-place—but take an example. ABRAHAM
AND LOT. Abraham and Lot his nephew, are in their tents near Bethel. A strife arises between their herdsmen, because the grazing grounds were not sufficiently ample for the herds and flocks of both. But Abraham, the man of peace, disliked contention; and though he was the elder, he gave the younger his choice of the country, that they might separate without strife. With primitive simplicity, but also with true greatness of soul, he said, “If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.”
Lot accordingly chose. Captivated by the rich pastures of the valley of the Jordan, he selected them. His eye was fixed only on what was good for his herds; it was Eastern wealth, in short, which attracted the nephew of Abraham. He did not think of the character of those who dwelt where he was to dwell; and in his hot pursuit of riches, he fared exactly as those who do as he did are faring still. The inhabitants of that garden-like valley were “wicked exceedingly,” but Lot threw himself among them without forethought, and as the result, his righteous soul was vexed from day to day. Their “grievous sins” harassed him; and if we may judge from his own conduct, he did not escape contamination. He had at last to haste and flee for his life, lest he should perish in the common overthrow.
EVIL COMMUNICATIONS.
EVIL
COMMUNICATIONS. And when was it otherwise? Who ever tasted, touched, or handled what pollutes, and yet continued pure? Who ever threw in their lot with godless men, without incurring the risk of sharing their doom? Do not worldly engrossments steal the heart from God? When we have goods laid up for many days, is it not our instant thought, unless a double portion of grace be sought, that we are less dependent now on the Author of every good and perfect gift? The soul thus withers and pines; and if a child of God escape, it is as Lot did from Sodom—“so as by fire.” Just as a dislocated limb gives pain to the body, or just as one member wrenched by violence from the rest makes the whole physical frame quake and quiver, the dislocation of a single precept of God does violence to our moral nature. It has been often noticed that the men who are deprived, by whatsoever cause, of the Sabbath rest, soon become the most degraded in a community, they have perished sometimes by their own right hand; and the remark may be generalized so as to include all the laws among the Ten. The man who runs greedily after gain and forgets to consecrate it to God, is thereby self-degraded, and self-ruined in the end.
COUNSELS.
COUNSELS. But perhaps all that we have argued might have been more briefly and more emphatically urged in a few words: “They first gave themselves to the Lord.”19 That is the true order of procedure on the part of Christian men, and that is the certain prelude to heavenly guidance. All that we have will be dedicated to the Great Proprietor, if we have first learned, as the Spirit teaches, to “present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.”
THE ONLY RULE.
Were it our object to exhaust this subject, instead of merely offering some general counsels, we should now proceed to other aspects of the Christian in the Market-place—that place where temptations are so rife, because the world’s current is at the strongest. We might refer to the necessity of excluding the engrossments of the Market-place from our hours of relaxation or our home duties, and press such examples as that of Him who left it as a counsel to others, that, they should leave all thoughts of business in their counting-house on Saturday, till their return on Monday.—But enough has been said for our purpose. And now, let it not be forgotten that all we plead for has been actually done in the Market-place by not a few. We urge nothing Utopian, nothing beyond what is written in the Word of God. A man can be both a student of the Bible, so as to regulate his business by its maxims, and yet prosper, as far as any Christian can care for prosperity; and that is proved by many examples. If a man, indeed, supposes that his life consists in the abundance that he has, or that the kingdom of God is meat and drink, then the Bible will be discarded; another god than itT-8 will be worshipped. THE
ONLY
RULE. But if it be the rooted conviction of a soul, that it can be rich only in so far as it enjoys the blessing of Jehovah, His word will be found at once a pleasant and a profitable guide. And even though poverty may assail us for abiding by God’s simple truth, we must still abide by it. Man lives not by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God; and though that maxim may provoke a smile from the devotees of the world, it is the maxim of eternal wisdom notwithstanding. Some whose life was spent in the place of business, of care and speculation, have left it upon record, that such a maxim is the only remedy for the woes of a groaning world.
We know that men cannot live upon their knees, especially in the market-place; but we also know that, in the most crowded mart, the way to the throne is open, if we have acquired a taste for walking in it. Have we not found some, and these among the busiest of men, who knew how to retreat into the secret place of the Most High’s pavilion, so as there to feel the truth of his promise, “My people shall dwell in quiet resting-places and peaceable habitations?” Have they not found a recess for communion with God, where no eye saw, and no ear heard, but his? If there be first a willing mind, a way to the throne will be found, even in the Market-place, and they who find it are blessed.
THE POWER OF GRACE.
Amid all this, we do not forget the difficulties of a merchant’s sphere, in an age so bent upon amassing as ours. We are not unfamiliar with his anxieties, his cares, and crosses—crosses which often come upon him mainly because he would set the Lord before him. But just the more on that account, and surely not the less, do we urge him to carry the Lamp of Life. On the one hand, if these anxieties and cares drive us from our steadfastness, and if God be left out of sight, will that diminish our cares? On the other hand, if we hold fast our integrity, is it to be feared that we shall be put to shame at last? THE POWER
OF GRACE. Nay, all that we plead for has been done: the grace of God can accomplish it, and more. There have been men surrounded with many cares, who yet served the Lord amid them all. They found that Christianity in the Market-place is as much provided for, as Christianity in the place where prayer is wont to be made. All that was needed was to seek the God and the grace of Christianity; they sought Him, and they triumphed. Cheered by the words, “Thou hast a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments,” they held fast their integrity as drowning men cling to the cable which is cast for their rescue; and in holding it fast, they secured the heritage which the gold of Ophir could not buy.
STEADFASTNESS.
It will readily be believed that, in a nation signalized like ours by commercial enterprise and mercantile activity, some have been found among our merchant princes whose proceedings have been presided over by purest Christian principle. If multitudes have sacrificed rather to Mammon than to the Holy One and the Just, some, on the other hand, have held fast their integrity, and sought to keep themselves “unspotted from the world.”—STEADFASTNESS.Among those who belong to the class who have thus exemplified the loftiest Christian principle in the Market-place, there are few whose name and memorial stand higher among men than the late Joseph Hardcastle of London. Early impressed with religion in its living and energetic form, he made it his guide and close companion through life. The Scriptures were to him the supreme and sovereign standard. He was led by their light to the Saviour of the lost, and, constrained by his love, he rejoiced in every opportunity for promoting His cause and glory. A life of dependence on his Redeemer was only another name for personal holiness; and to personal holiness he added abilities of a superior order, which appeared at once in the world-wide business which he conducted as a merchant, and the efforts of a directly religious nature which he put forth. Among the objects to which Hardcastle was devoted, the London Missionary Society was perhaps the chief. In the capacity of its treasurer, he laboured for many years with zeal in the service of Him who has the heathen for his heritage. To the duties of that office he brought the same sagacity and soundness of view, the same unbending uprightness and lofty integrity, which signalized him as a member of the greatest mercantile community in the world. Even amid the contentions of debate, Hardcastle was calm and gentle: his Christianized nature raised him above the influences of those shocks which ruffle and discompose more common minds; and though nothing could ever sway him to act against truth and principle, his mildness and benignity rendered him the friend of all.
JOSEPH HARDCASTLE.
JOSEPH
HARDCASTLE. But not merely were Hardcastle’s time and energies thus largely devoted to the Saviour’s cause. His ample liberalities from year to year, “entitled him to the rank of the first pecuniary benefactor of the London Missionary Society.” In short, faith unfeigned was the basis of what he did, whether in the Market-place or amid scenes whose duties appear to some to be incompatible with the assiduities of business. With commercial relations which touched the ends of the earth, Hardcastle spread his influence for good as widely as his merchandise. He proved by his example that it is possible to be at once active in business, and serving the Lord; and our commercial enterpriseT-9 would rest upon a more solid basis, or be more richly fraught with blessings, were that godliness which is the only solid foundation of true dignity and completeness of character cultivated by all, as it was by Joseph Hardcastle.
THE DYING BELIEVER.
THE
DYING
BELIEVER. But his own history was spoken, and his principles were described by himself, in some of the last sentences which he ever uttered. To illustrate these, the following selections may suffice:—
“Lord Jesus, thou hast said, ‘He that believeth in me shall never die; and he that believeth, though he were dead, yet shall he live.’ I believe this; I believe I shall never know what death is, but pass into life.”—This is the triumph of faith.
“Thou hast said, ‘Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.’ I come to thee; thou wilt not cast me out.”—This is God honoured, and man made happy.
“Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life, and I am going to dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. I am infinitely indebted to him for his conduct of me from infancy to the end of my life. He took me by the hand in a wonderful manner, and brought me into connection with the excellent of the earth. Most gracious God, I commit my children to thee, and I charge them to walk in thy fear and love.”—This is the death of the righteous.
“He has drawn me with the cords of mercy from my earliest days. He gave me very early impressions of religion, and enabled me to devote myself to him in early life; and this God is my God for ever and ever—for ever and ever. I said to him when I was a young man, ‘Thou shalt guide me by thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.’ ‘Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth whom I desire besides thee.’”
THE DYING PARENT.
THE
DYING
PARENT. “No principle can enter the mind so sublime as the doctrine of the cross, which, with infinite majesty, speaks peace in heaven, on earth, and throughout the universe. Let every one of my children glory in the cross of salvation—it is the power of God to every one that believeth. The power of God; what feeble ideas do I attach to such expressions!”
“I am, in some respects, like the old patriarch Jacob, on his dying bed, with all his sons about him. Live in love, and the God of love will be with you. This is my last farewell; this is our last interview till we meet in a better world. My flesh and heart are failing. I hope I have not been deceiving myself. My children seek for an interest in Christ—seek for an interest in Christ. I earnestly exhort you to be decided, and to be very useful. He is your best friend: manifest your regard for him to the world; avow your attachment; be not ashamed of him; he is the glory and the ornament of the universe.”
“I hope I shall be favoured, when my spirit is departing, with some intimations of approaching glory. I will trust in him—I will trust in him. In the meantime, I possess a sweet peace, calm and undisturbed. I will go to God, my exceeding joy, as the psalmist says. It is an awful thing for a human spirit, deeply depraved as it is, to appear before the tribunal of so mighty a Being. He placeth no trust in his servants; the heavens are not clean in his sight.”
“If I am to live,20 I welcome life, and thank its Giver; if I am to die, I welcome death, and thank its Conqueror. If I have a choice, I would rather depart and be with Christ, which is far better.”
“My last act of faith I wish to be to take the work of Jesus, as the high priest did when he entered within the vail; and when I have passed the vail, to appear with it before the throne.”
“I have just finished my course; I hope also I may say, ‘I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith; and henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me at that day.’”
“Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit when it leaves the body: thou hast redeemed it—I have waited for thy salvation.”
ALMIGHTY GRACE.
—There is much in the life of men whose home is chiefly in the Market-place, to deaden and secularize their spirits; ALMIGHTY
GRACE. but examples like that of Hardcastle tell that grace is almighty even there—even there, were men to honour God, he would honour them. It would be made manifest to all, that even the life of a merchant prince may be spent in the ways of God, and conduct to his eternal home.
