[3] Not very long since, a public lecturer was proceeding to Sheffield, and in a railway train astounded me by arguing that the apostle Paul preached the gospel before Jesus Christ was crucified. A Sunday-scholar of seven years of age would have taught him better. I was lately in a large meeting in Pentonville, when an intelligent man, who avowed himself a skeptic, who had read Mr. Buckle’s “History of Civilization,” declared that men who believed the Bible could never be expected to attend to man’s social condition; for that Christ taught, in John 6, that we were “not to labor for the meat which perisheth.” Now mark, the very verse before the one quoted tells us that a multitude had followed Christ, not at all caring for what he would teach them, but because he had fed them with loaves and fishes. Their miserable motive he exposed, and bid them labor for meat which endured unto everlasting life. Suppose a son of this skeptic had taken what professed to be a letter from his mother, and singled out a clause from its context to bring the letter into contempt before a meeting, what would that father have called such a son? A scoundrel. God probably pities him as he would not his son. But let young men take heed of reasoning which is not merely a reproach to candor, but to common intelligence.
[4] See Quarterly Journal of Geological Society, No. 86, p. 88. See note, p. 129.
Several years ago a man, now venerable for age and character, gave the writer some valuable hints about boys and young men in relation to business. He had himself begun life a poor boy, and achieved large success. Coming to New York more than sixty years ago, he was familiar with all the changes in methods of doing business up to the time then present. Nor has he ceased to be active in the affairs of a large concern at this later day. The passing years have made him old and have not left me young. The thoughts he gave me, supplemented by my own reading, observation and reflection, move me to set down some things that may be helpful not only to the classes of persons already referred to, but to others as well.
The great change in business methods does not warrant any change in the characters and habits of those who have a right to expect success in any true meaning of the word.