Article January 9, 1902 Issue

Religious Items

with contributions from THEODORE L. CUYLER, OLIVER JAY FAIRFIELD, L. M. POWERS, GEORGE MACDONALD, T. T. CARTER, WILLIAM R. HUNTINGTON, HORACE BUSHNELL

There is a man not far from any one of us who is making a success of life. Yet he has not wealth, social position, nor political preferment. He is a very commonplace, everyday sort of a man, yet he is the freest man in the community. He owns his home, though it is but a little one; he has two hundred and thirty-seven dollars in the bank to use in case of emergency; he has a position where he earns a dollar and seventy-five cents a day for nine hours' work,—a work he likes to do; he has his evenings for work in his little shop in his cellar, or for reading in his little library, or for attendance upon his social and political duties. This man laughs a great deal because he is contented and happy, and his especial joke is upon those who have more than he does because of their limitations. He says, "There is my friend in the big house over there; poor fellow, he can't go out until his coachman is ready for him. I can go at any time; he is such a bother at Christmas time, he has so much I do not know what to give him, whereas any little thing gives me pleasure. When I get a little bunch of violets my whole house is glorified, but it takes the product of a whole conservatory to make any impression on his house or him. Poor fellow he has a hundred dollars to my one, but I get as much fun out of my one as he does out of his hundred, and I don't have half the care and responsibility. My house is going to be just as full of Christmas joy as his even though it does not hold as much. I am going to wish him a merry Christmas, conscious of what a lot it costs him to be merry and thankful that he has enough to pay the bill. When he wishes me a merry Christmas, for he will, he is going to catch his breath and wonder if I have enough to be happy on!" And so on. There is a man in every community whose heart is the abiding place of contentment—or there should be.

The Universalist Leader.

With the Golden Rule any scheme will work; that is to say, any scheme will work which can be turned about, so that the parties affected will change places. The question raised by the Golden Rule concerning any plan of action is, Will it work both ways? is it as good for the people at one end of the line as it is for those at the other? The Golden Rule calls for the ordinary operations of common sense and the demands of fair play. He who says that governments cannot be managed under the Golden Rule, and that business cannot be transacted in that way, does not know men, and is not intelligent enough to do business and get the best rewards for doing it. Fair play, always in the long run, makes business easier and more profitable. The men who do not believe in the Golden Rule never tried it. It is a cheerful sign of the times that the rulers of the world are beginning to see, and some are beginning to say, like our own President and Secreatary of State, that no nation can get any permanent advantage out of business relations which tend to enrich one nation by impoverishing others. Mutual trust, mutual benefit, and a wide community of interests are now recognized as necessary elements of any general prosperity stable enough to ensure the well-being of the family of nations and of each individual member of it.—The Christian Register.

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