Business Is Business

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 25, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 12.

Business Is Business

“Business is Business.”—On the above the Presbyterian well says:—

“One of the most vicious and ensnaring maxims of the day is the expression, ‘Business is business.’ Under its influence things are done against which the conscience revolts. As the result, a dual character is developed, one for the store or office, and the other for the church or the Sabbath school. People often wonder how so good a man as Elder A, or Deacon B, or Superintendent C seems to be, can conduct his business in the way in which he does. It is hard to reconcile the inconsistency, but whatever may be said in extenuation or justification of the course pursued, the injury to himself and to the cause of religion is none the less potent.”

And yet it is not a “dual character” after all. A true Christian, one connected with the life of God through Christ, will be a Christian everywhere, in the bank, the store, the shop, the church. If he can do business on other than Christian principle, his Christianity is a hollow sham, a cloak, not a life.