GOSPEL IN BUSINESS

Evening Star, Issue 19351, 10 September 1926, Page 4

GOSPEL IN BUSINESS

ffi® TESTAMENT TEACHING FOUMATM GF COHFISEKSE

Is the teaching of Jesus applicable to the present day? Bernard Shaw affirms in the preface to ‘ Major Barbara ’ that its acceptance is the only way in which men can rid themselves of the troubles of the modern world. On tho other hand, Walter Pater once angered Browning at dinner by saying that it was impossible to accept the teaching of any man who lived 2,000 years ago as the guidance of life. What are the difficulties? Compare the way; in which people disposed of their savings then and now, writes Kenneth Henderson in the Melbourne ‘Argus.’ Take two pictures — one of a man digging a hole in the corner of his field by a hedge under cover of darkness, dropping into it a bag of coins, and hastily obliterating the traces of his work; the other tho interior of a city bank at midday on Saturdays—tho rows of elastic-bound bank books containing their bundles of cheques and notes spread _ trustfully over the counter, and the swift-fingered tellers sweeping them with rapid, apparently mechanical accuracy into the keeping of the bank. The depositor picks up his slips confidently and goes. Could anything he ■ more different in atmosphere than those two picturesYet 'if we look a little closer the meaning contained in tho first picture applies equally to tho second. “The kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found he hideth, and for joy there of goothand seliMh all that he hath and buyetli that field.” That is a metaphor from business, and keen business at that. It was by no means an impossible occurrence. In the days before banking came within the world of the peasant savings were hidden, sometimes in a wall or floor, sometimes buried in the ground. Tho man who died away from home or met with some other misfortune might easily leave his savings buried. Jesus is not criticising the morality of the purchaser; He is affirming that loyalty to God and His causes (the kingdom) is the hidden treasure of life. which must be won by devoting the other treasures to its achievement. When men have discovered its decnly satisfying joy, the fulfilment that It offers to all their powers and resources, they wifi bring them to its achievement. Their wealth and abilities will not he wasted; they will lie devoted to the end which makes life worth living. THE USE OF POSSESSIONS.

There follows another little parable in the same sense. Nearly all trade was by barter in that time. “ The kingdom of God is like pnto a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, who. when lie had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” One can imagine the merchant seated in his booth in the bazaar, with his keen eye for value, in gems, exchanging handfuls of inferior jewels till his stock becomes more valuable and select, then staking it all on the purchase of some flawless pearl. Keen business animated all his dealings. He knew what he wanted, and he pursued it through a long series of alert dealings. Jewels were sound investment then. Before hanks they were convenient and compact means of storing capital, easily realisable, readily exchanged. Valuable cloth was also used in this way. The linen of Egypt, film and light and very valuable, was bought and stored away in presses, where it was preserved in certain herbs. Both parables insist on the full use of a man’s earthly possessions. Both insist that their value depends on their being used for an end beyond themselves, as a means to righteousness and nobility of life, as power for love. Even our banking processes winch have replaced the furtive stooping figure of the man burying his money at night owe something to the teaching of Jesus. Modern commerce is a great organised system basal on men’s confidence in one another. Banking and company law contain mnch sublimated Christianity. Their aim so far as they go is to restrain the strong from taking advantage of the weak. “The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully.” He decided to make" himself secure by digging great store pits in the ground for bis produce. Those were dug and bricked in to protect the fruits from the heat. Then in case, based on security, in a glory of selfishness made perfect, the rich man settled down to enjoy life. “Sou! thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease; eat, drink, and he merry.” It is not possible to translate the word signified by soul—it means the sum of a man’s faculties with which he tastcs_ of life. But the whole basis of security was false. “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; then (the bitter question for the selfish man) whose snail those things be which thou hast provided?” Another attack is made by Jesus on this method of seeking security in His words, “ Lay not up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal.” The jewel casket was very insecure in days when alien, soldiery were the only police, and the chest of cloth worth its weight in gold could not bo guaranteed against moth and rust. Jesus insists that confidence is a temper and not a bank balance. To seek it in material tilings is but to attempt to keep pace with one’s fears. His confidence was a final courage welling up from the conviction that the Father is goodness and love to just and unjust alike. It was not a passive trust, but a blazing certainty. The wild flowers that flamed on the hillside, to ire withered by the boat of a single day, proclaimed the providence of God. “ Consider the lilies how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; yet I say unto you that Solomon in all bis glory was not arrayed like ono of these.” Orientals aro not afraid of color, and oven the rough clothes of the peasants were striped in brilliant hues. If, then, God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow east into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O ye of little faith?” All Nature seemed full of this joyous and serene confidence in the Creator. “ Ravens have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feodeth them.” Not a sparrow falls, but the Father knows of it. The confidence of Jesus was to be shaken as desperately as that of any follower of His has ever been; but even in the pain and bewilderment of the Cross He won a conviction that His death was not the result of some cruel, blind chance, but a conflict in which He was playing the part assigned Him by the Father’s love. FEAR THE CHIEF ENEMY. Modern psychologists say that nearly everyone is more or less crippled by fear" of some kind. They say that if we could rid our lives of fear we should thereby set free, all kinds of powers that we did not know that we possessed. Yet is it possible to lake Jesus’s words about “ not worrying ” literally? The answer must he that it is never possible to take the words of Jesus literally without doing some violence to their meaning. He spoke to those as accustomed to brilliant color in speech as in dress, it was His aim to shock people awake. “ Be not at all fearful about the things of the morrow ” is nearer to the meaning of the words than “Take no thought of the morrow ” —“ for the morrow will take care of the things belonging' to itself.” /‘Throw your confidence in God into the future, rid yourself of the fear of the unknown, and meet it with trust in God.” “The morrow” ’ here stands for what lies ahead, and

■therefore more or loss outside man’s knowledge and control. That saying must not be taken to forbid life insurance or. saving. These are present duties of love, imposed by God’s own common sense. What can wo do to reduce risks is a duty we owe to those put in our care. Many parables teach the importance of foresight. A farther question arises: Have not anxiety and carefulness a useful and unavoidable part to play in life? ‘When a child is sick, or when one concentrates on a really critical difficulty in work, the very uncertainty of the outcome produces a nervous strain. Wo may feel this tension, however, without losing hold of a firm underlying conviction of the Father’s love. Intense anxiety about details is not inconsistent with “ bedrock ” confidence in a purpose for good This prevents anxiety from he coming pauic or despair. “Groan if you must,” said Epictetus the Stoic, in a Slightly different sense, “ but do not groan from the centre.” _ Final confidence. is not to ho contained in well-constructed grain pits or held in gilt-edged securities, nor to be shaken by suffering or the fear of it. That is hard teaching, hut it is worth wrestling with, for it opens up the one way ‘n which a man can master life and fate.