NOT AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS.
To those who hold that modern, superior, more exact business methods are the evidences of increasing Christian morality and progress, the New York Independent says:— It is the flimsiest kind of pseudo-religious optimism which holds that because honesty and fidelity to contracts are more and more essential to modern business relations, modern business is therefore more and more essentially Christian. Religion goes deeper, and might even condemn the entire structure as radically wrong and hostile to the true life of fellowship with divine perfection. Indeed as far as honesty and fidelity to contracts are concerned, a society composed wholly of gamblers would be necessarily stricter on these points than any other conceivable form of society. The gambler who violated his contracts and did not play up to the rules of the games would be absolutely shut out from earning a living. No one would play with him. He not only would not succeed he would not even be admitted to the game, and the penalty would be starvation. Among themselves gamblers are the “soul of honor”—it is only when they are “fleecing the lambs” that they violate their high code of ethics. If there were no lambs and all were gamblers, their code of honor and fidelity to agreements would be irrefragable. And this is true. The Christian business man needs not these rules in order to make him honest; he will be honest any way. He needs system and intelligence for the sake of economy, order, better understanding, etc., but he will be honest and do justly whether there is a civil or criminal law or a rule of commerce or a regulation of business. There is a wonderful difference between being honest under all circumstances and acting honest because your system of business is so regulated that you dare not do otherwise or even where a premium is paid for accurate, rapid work. Honesty is not a cloak for occasions; it is a principle that controls.