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Wisdom

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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 17, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 19.

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Wisdom

THE WISE business man will recognize all his relationships, obligations, duties, privileges. He will rightly weigh between the little things and the great, between the minute and the hour, between the momentary present and the infinite future. That does not mean, however, that he will ignore or throw away the little, spend foolishly the minute, consider of no worth the present. But it DOES MEAN that he will see in that little the possibilities of much; that he will value the minute by the hour into which it grows; that the single brick will be of the quality he desires the house to be; that the present shall be spent in such a way that he will meet it with gladness in the infinite, ever unrolling future.
Therefore the wise business man will have regard for the future, the future beyond the present moment, beyond the present life; because this life gives no promise of continuance. To-day there may seem to be strength and vitality; to-morrow the form may be prone and cold in death. The eyes which saw large visions of present-life greatness are sightless. The busy mind that conceived such great schemes is oblivious to every earthly impulse. The enlarged barns and storehouses and business and farms, are now dead dreams; and the heart which hoped in the present life, is dead with its hopes.
The WISE business man will recognize this. He will rightly weigh the relative worth of things. He will not barter eternity for time; he will use the time as a part of eternity; he will place in the structure such materials as will persist and endure forever.
A little eyelid shuts out from men the glorious light of the sun. So a little dollar is made to blind us to eternal riches. A little present gain shuts from most men the future gain, so that the momentary gain means eternal loss.
The wise business man will not sacrifice life for lust.
He will not barter probity for property.
He will not count coin of more value than character.
The intelligent, honest, wise business man will therefore take time to consider the things of eternity. Every principle of business demands it. Every expansive principle of soul and mind demands it.
His business will not then be planned with $10,000, $100,000, or $1,000,000 as its goal. All those conceptions will be small and cheap. It will not be planned with the one ambition of securing social standing for his wife or his children or himself among the great. These are utterly insignificant in the hour of death, in the building of character, before the Great White Throne.
His business will be planned for eternity. It will be planned for character-making and humanity-blessing here; for eternal riches and honor and glory; for companionship with the best and truest and greatest of all ages; for social and moral standing forever with the eternal Father and His Son Jesus Christ.