"To tell the truth," answered Alexander, "the two men would have been put under guard and the treasure seized by the king." "For the king?" asked the ruler, in astonishment. "Does the sun shine in your country?" "Oh, yes." "Does it rain there?" "Certainly." "Singular! Are there tame, grass-eating animals there?" "Of many kinds." "Then," said the ruler, "it must be on account of these innocent animals that the all-good Being allows the sun to shine and the rain to fall. You men do not deserve it." Common business life generally tests a man's integrity. In buying goods and making sales there is a splendid opportunity for cheating. A merchant once maintained stoutly that a man could not keep a store with success unless, in various small ways, he defrauded his customers. He did not say that he committed such frauds himself, but the inference was pretty strong that he did so. Rev. Thomas Carter contended with him just as earnestly that it was not necessary thus to make cheating a part of business; that a man who was upright and honest in dealing was most likely to succeed; and, supposing the principle he advocated to be correct, then no Christian man should keep a store, because it was a sin to rob our neighbors. He cited the case of a merchant in the same village, a plain, unassuming man, who continued year after year, his business increasing until he enlarged his store, beloved and respected by all, giving regularly his proportion of money toward the support of the Church, until, with a competency sufficient for the wants of his family and himself, he sold outan illustration of the familiar maxim that "Honesty is the best policy," even in worldly matters. Dr. Talmage, of Brooklyn, not long ago preached a sermon in which he affirmed that "there is so much plundering in commercial life, that if a man talk about living a life of complete commercial accuracy, there are those who ascribe it to greenness and lack of tact. More need of honesty now than ever before-tried honesty, complete honesty-more than in those times when business was a plain affair, and woolens were woolens, and silks were silks, and men were men. How many men do you suppose there are in commercial life who could say, truthfully, 'In all the sales I have ever made I have never overstated the value of goods; in all the sales I have ever made I have never covered up an imperfection in the fabric; of all the thousands of dollars I have ever made I have not taken one dishonest farthing?' There are men, however, who can say it, hundreds who can say it, thousands who can say it. They are more honest than when they sold their first tierce of rice or their first firkin of butter, because their honesty and integrity have been tested, tried and come out triumphant. But they remember a time when they could have robbed a partner, or have absconded with the funds of a bank, or sprung, a snap judgment, or made a false assignment, or borrowed illimitably without any efforts at payment, or got a man into a sharp corner and fleeced him. But they never took one step on that pathway of hell-fire. They can say their prayers without hearing the chink of dishonest dollars. They can read the Bible without thinking of the time when, with a lie on their soul in the custom house, they kissed the book. They can think of death and the judgment that comes after it without any flinching-that day when all charlatans and cheats and jockeys and frauds shall be doubly damned. It does not make their knees knock together, and it does not make their teeth chatter to read, 'As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not, so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.'" The best thing every business man can do for himself is so to arrange and order his affairs that his conscience will never trouble him. It can be done, and is done. One of the largest dry-goods firms in the city of Detroit was founded on principles of the highest morality. On the evening of opening day the employees were all called together in a private room, and there instructed by the principal of the firm as to rules that should govern them in making sales. That sharp, practical lecture, the points of which have been strictly observed by the house, would do honor to any pulpit in the land. The firm is prosperous, too, and the clerks are happy in the possession of clear consciences. VIRTUE. "Know, my fellow mortals, know Virtue alone is happiness below; And what is virtue? Prudence first to choose Add justice, then, the eager hand to hold, To curb the lust of power and thirst of gold; Join temperance next, that cheerful health insures, "I do not remember," affirms Addison, "to have read any discourse written expressly upon the beauty and loveliness of virtue, without considering it as a duty, and as the means of making us happy both now and hereafter. I design, therefore, this speculation as an essay upon that subject, in which I shall consider virtue no further than as it is in itself of an amiable nature, after I have premised that I understand by the word virtue such a general notion as is affixed to it by the writers of morality, and which by devout men generally goes under the name of religion, and by men of the world under the name of honor. "Hypocrisy itself does great honor, or rather justice to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The hypocrite would not be at so much pains to put on the appearance of virtue, if he did not know it was the most proper and effectual means to gain the love and esteem of mankind. "We learn from Hierocles it was a common saying among the heathens that the wise man hates nobody, but only loves the virtuous. "Tully has a very beautiful gradation of thought to show how amiable virtue is. We love a virtuous man,' says he, 'who lives in the remotest parts of the earth, though we are altogether out of the reach of his virtue, and can receive from it no manner of benefit.' Nay, one who died several ages ago, raises a secret fondness and benevolence for him in our minds when we read his story. Nay, what is still more, one who has been the enemy of our country, provided his wars were regulated by justice and humanity, as in the instance of Pyrrhus, whom Tully mentions on this occasion in opposition to Hannibal. Such is the natural beauty and loveliness of virtue. "Stoicism, which was the pedantry of virtue, ascribes all good qualifications of what kind soever to the virtuous man. Accordingly, Cato, in the character Tully has left of him, carried matters so far that he would not allow any one but a virtuous man to be handsome. This, indeed, looks more like a philosophical rant than the real opinion of a wise man; yet this was what Cato very seriously maintained. In short, the Stoics thought they could not sufficiently represent the excellence of virtue if they did not comprehend in the notion of it all possible perfections; and therefore did not only suppose that it was transcendently beautiful in itself, but that it made the very body amiable, and banished every kind • of deformity from the person in whom it resided. "It is a common observation that the most abandoned to all sense of goodness are apt to wish those who are related to them of a different character; and it is very observable that none are more struck with the charms of virtue in the fair sex than those who by their very admiration of it are carried to a desire of ruining it. "A virtuous mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it makes the beautiful sex all over charms. "As virtue in general is of an amiable and lovely nature, there are some particular kinds of it which are more so than others, and these are such as dispose us to do good to mankind. Temperance and abstinence, faith and devotion, are in themselves, perhaps, as laudable as any other virtues; but those which make a man popular and beloved, are justice, charity, munificence, and, in short, all the good qualities which render us beneficial to each other. For this reason even an extravagant man, who has nothing else to recommend him but a false generosity, is often more beloved and esteemed than a person of a much more finished character, who is defective in this particular. "The two great ornaments of virtue, which show her in the most advantageous views, and make her altogether lovely, are cheerfulness and good nature. These generally go together, as a man cannot be agreeable to others who is not easy within himself. They are both very requisite in a virtuous mind, to keep out melancholy from the many serious thoughts it is engaged in, and to hinder its natural hatred of vice from souring into severity and censoriousness. "If virtue is of this amiable nature, what can we think of those who can look upon it with an eye of hatred and ill-will, or can suffer their aversion for a party to blot out all the merit of the person who is engaged in it? A man must be excessively stupid, as well as uncharitable, who believes that there is no virtue but on his own side, and that there are not men as honest as himself who may differ from him in political principles. Men may oppose one another in some particulars, but ought not to carry their hatred to those qualities which are of so amiable a nature in themselves, and have nothing to do with the points in dispute. Men of virtue, though of different interests, ought to consider themselves as more nearly united with one another than with the vicious part of mankind who embark with them in the same civil concerns. We should bear the same toward a man of honor who is a living antagonist, which Tully tells us in the fore-mentioned passage every one naturally does to an enemy that is dead. In short, we should esteem virtue though in a foe, and abhor vice though in a friend. "I speak this with an eye to those cruel treatments which men of all sides are apt to give the characters of those who do not agree with them. How many persons of undoubted probity and exemplary virtue, on either side, are blackened and defamed! How many men of honor exposed to public obloquy and reproach! Those, therefore, who are either the instruments or abettors in such infernal dealings, ought to be looked upon as persons who make use of religion to promote their cause, not of their cause to promote religion." CHARACTER. In the common-sense opinion of mankind every man's character is in his own hands. He constructs the edifice to suit himself. "For the structure that we raise, Time is with materials filled; Our to-days and yesterdays Are the blocks with which we build." |