[Editorial in the Frederick Leader, Oklahoma]

We are learning more about neighborliness just now than we did during the days when prosperity was at high tide. When we are prosperous we get the idea that we are sufficient unto ourselves — and we do not feel the need of neighborly helpfulness. If our neighbors are prosperous, also, we see no occasion for exerting ourselves on their behalf. One of the compensations for periods of general distress is that they cause selfishness to be submerged in consideration for others. They teach us to be kind, because we need that others shall be kind to us. They make the Golden Rule seem very desirable in our lives, because we need that others shall apply it to us.

Most people in a Christian country are theoretically kind and charitable. Many of them depend on organized societies to give expression to their desire to conform to the recognized duty to do something for others. These are necessary and ennobling. But the sort of kindness and charity which makes us really compassionate is that which we exercise ourselves — with our own hands, by our own word of mouth, from the depths of our own hearts.

The experience through which we are passing teaches us to be merciful as we would have mercy: and if it thus affects our lives, it will be worth while.

[J. C. Penney, in the Christian Herald, New York, New York]

Business at its best requires the finest understanding of the relationship of human beings, for business is just another word for the social, industrial, and economic organization of our present world. Business has its sacred obligation, and any person who enters business with the sole idea of self and money is utterly unworthy.

No amount of education, no preparation, no amount of spiritual development is too great for the activities of this basic function of civilized life — business.

[Editorial in the New Outlook, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]

There never was a time in human history, so far as we know, when all men felt perfectly satisfied with the existing order either in the matter of material or spiritual things. But never before has this dissatisfaction become so general or so vocal throughout the world. There is no doubt whatever but that men and women in all countries are deeply concerned and are anxiously searching, not so much for some means of patching up the system that is crumbling, as for some genuine program of absolute reconstruction.

That this rebuilding of the social and industrial structure of the nations should come peacefully and voluntarily, as mighty revolutions have sometimes been effected, would be the ideal way, and the sincere hope of all well-disposed people. There are many who believe that it can come in this way, but it is clear that it can only come through courageous and venturous and self-sacrificing effort.

What must be done can be done, and in this respect an interesting experiment has been made and has achieved outstanding success. In fact, it may show us how the required social transformation of industry may be initiated.

The experiment is that of the Columba Conserve Company, a canning factory in Indianapolis, Indiana, upon which considerable attention has centered recently. Fourteen years age, this enterprise was transformed by its owners . . into a cooperative concern, now exclusively controlled and managed by the working force, which owns the stock collectively. This experiment has proved to be "an unqualified, ever growing financial success," according to Professor Henri Lasserre, of Toronto, who visited the factory to study the enterprise last summer. Great improvement in the conditions of the workers, practically complete stability of employment, genuine industrial democracy in the management, and a fine spirit of fraternity and solidarity amongst all concerned, are amongst the special features noted by Professor Lasserre.

[Dr. Charles Edwards Park, in an address quoted in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin, Cambridge, Massachusetts]

In that Psalm [the twenty-third] man is likened to the sheep, and God is likened to the shephered. Those who know, tell us that a sheep is not an especially lovable animal, and that there is nothing especially complimentary in being likened to a sheep. But there is this much in the analogy: you cannot drive a sheep; you must lead a sheep; you must show the way, and trust the sheep to follow. May it be that we love the twenty-third Psalm just because it pictures a relationship for which we are hungry? We get tired of being driven by fear and threat; we long to be led by hope and trust. We long to be shown the way by the glimpse of an ideal, and to be trusted to follow that ideal just because it is so attractive to something in us.

[Editorial in the Herald, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada]

"He that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve." When there was a strife among the disciples as to which of them should be accounted the greatest, Christ [Jesus], in the reply he made to them, gave them something to think about, and this thought extends to the present day. He amplified what he had to say with the question: "For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? . . . but I am among you as he that serveth."

Christ [Jesus] came to us as one who serves. By his every action he placed the hallmark on service and exemplified the spirit of service. He did not look for reward. He did not seek the praises of men. He was content to go about his business quietly— the business of service to his fellow creatures, inspired by the love of service.

How vain it all seems, this striving in the spirit of which of us should be accounted the greatest, when we are faced with the pattern of our Lord! How small the things we strive after seem when placed against the spirit which manifested itself in Christ [Jesus] in all that he did! How much we become aware of our shortcomings in the profession of Christianity when we consider the Christianity of Christ [Jesus]!

Our Christianity should not be paraded. It should be a question between ourselves and our conscience. It should not be for ostentation, nor to be accounted great in the estimation of men, but a Christianity actuated by the dictates of the heart. The quiet way of doing good, inspired purely by the spirit of doing good, is a great Christian virtue. Quietness goes with peacefulness; and is there not something of the peace "which passeth all understanding" that comes to us when we render a service, when we do an act of kindness, in the knowledge that we have been guided purely by what is genuine within us, with nothing of self-seeking, with nothing in the way of striving to make men think well of us, but to gratify that call which comes from a God of love? In our private acts, in our public acts, this is the spirit which should actuate us. . . . To keep ourselves from reproaching ourselves is a great Christian endeavor.

[Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, as quoted in the New York Times, New York]

The cynic tells us that the renunciation of war is mere words. So are the Ten Commandments; so is the Constitution of the United States; so is any treaty which, by the usual processes of negotiation and ratification, has become the supreme law of the land. All these are mere words, nothing but words, from the cynic's viewpoint. Men of clearer vision and wiser judgment, however, see in these words the written and spoken record of acts, of thought and of will, of determination and of purpose. "With words we govern men," wrote Disraeli long ago.

All that is needed to make any one of these mere words effective is that those who have uttered them, or subscribed to them, shall keep the faith. If faithlessness be assumed to be the certain accompaniment of any one of these mere words, why should it not be assumed to be the accompaniment of them all? If governments are not to be expected to keep their word when they renounce war, why should they be expected to keep their word when they make treaties of amity and commerce, or when they agree together to limit naval armaments?

With an assumed faithlessness on the part of governments all hope of civilization fails. It is on the good faith of governments and on he ability and willingness of public opinion to compel governments to keep their plighted word, that the peace of the world and the hope of the world depend.

[From the Ulster County News, Kingston, New York]

Men little realize what a force for good or evil thought is. As a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he." Want of self-control, anger, and disagreeable emotions poison and injure the body and mind.

If children were taught that it is disgraceful to give way to temper, much regret and sorrow in after life would be avoided. Teach them that kind thoughts give rise to kind deeds. If they were taught to love their fellow men, and the helpless, defenseless animals, it would incline them toward gentleness and justice.

Few things are more conducive to self-control than real kindness of heart. If boys and girls could experience the joys of hunting the birds and wild, shy things with cameras instead of guns, we would see less crime and fewer killings in our country. A new era of peace on earth, good will to all of God's creatures, would be ushered in. They would grow away from many of the savage instincts that persist in spite of mere literary education.

What the human race needs is a baptism of kindness and self-control. Peace, love, and goodness would reign in the earth, instead of hate, misery, and discontent.

[C. E. Pettibone, in the American Mutual Magazine, Boston, Massachusetts]

Just remember that workmen respond to exactly the same fundamentals that you do. They respond to kindness. They need and appreciate an incentive. They like to feel that they are part of and vital to an organization. They appreciate confidence. They work primarily to make a living for themselves and their families, but do better work where it is enjoyable.