The ideal of business is service. The coordination of the efforts of men should result in enlarged advantages and blessings for all mankind. Profits are natural as reward; but reward seekers who wish profits only, try to win these without deserving them. The old rule of righteousness was Palmam qui meruit ferat, "Let him who has deserved the wreath carry it." The dishonest are those who try to snatch the reward from the hands of those who have earned it. So in this era of unrest we find buyer and seller, employer and worker, laborer with head or heart or hand, each one more or less tempted by distrust to be bitter, fearful, or discontented, whereas the need is for greater confidence than ever in the beneficent law of an overruling Providence.
If an actuary is employed to compute insurance premiums and to calculate risks, not only is skill in calculation expected but strict obedience to every law of mathematics,—as also in the case of the auditor appointed to examine public accounts. It can be said of them if they are worthy, that they have given up their own way and will, their personal desire, because of obedience to mathematical righteousness. They know that correction will offend those who have made mistakes, but rightness and correctness are ideals which they must regard far above personal favor or disfavor. So likewise in the whole operation of business; where ideals of honor are maintained they are expressed in fair play and just dealing, in honest projects and manly service, in the prevalence of decency and order so that the worker can honor himself in his work, and be happy in the knowledge that he is honored as one obedient to Principle.
To impatient self-will, considerations of honor and kindness seem tedious. The word pledged, the contract made, the promise given, are thrust aside thoughtlessly by self-interest. "Can one bind the stubborn ox by garlands of flowers? Put him under the heavy yoke and let him kick against the piercing goad; it is the yoke and the goad that most men need"—so speak those who believe in external force as the remedy, seeing not that were their inner thoughts and designs made visible the yoke and the whip would be suitable for them also. Theories which propose the gain of ease, advantage, and profit by putting others to disadvantage, by planning to make others suffer hunger, cold, and nakedness are so baldly unchristian that they ought to be abhorred. Some one said of a wrong done, when it was criticized as being criminal, "It was worse than a crime, it was a mistake." The criminal violates the law of the state, but he who makes a mistake in living takes issue against God. Clad in fine raiment, fair in bodily presence, supported by human adulation were the Pharisees; but Jesus said. "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do." Christ Jesus himself declared a far different mission than self-will determined to carry out its evil intent, when he said before Pilate, ''To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth."
