What Shall It Profit?

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 28, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 41.

What Shall It Profit?

“WHAT shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” is a question which admits of but one answer; but that answer is too often forgotten in the mad race for worldly riches and honor. We are far too prone to feel that a man's life does consist in the abundance of those things which he possesseth. We are too apt to measure a man's success in life by his success in business.

But “carrying on business successfully is not half so important as building good manhood. Whether at the end of sixty or seventy years of hard toil, a man rests with a comfortable fortune or comes to the close with nothing, is really a very small matter, in comparison with what the man himself is at the end of his career. We pity a good man who fails in business when too old to start again; but if, through his checkered course, he has kept himself pure and clean and true, and has grown into strong, noble character, he is not to be pitied. Pity rather the poor man with his millions, who has made money at the price of his character, and has built up a fortune on the ruins of his manhood,” and the loss of his soul.