章节正文
Do you carry on your store like that in Philadelphia?
The difficulty was I had not then learned
that the foundation of godliness and the foundation
principle of success in business are both the
same precisely. The man who says, ``I cannot
carry my religion into business'' advertises himself
either as being an imbecile in business, or on the
road to bankruptcy, or a thief, one of the three,
sure. He will fail within a very few years. He
certainly will if he doesn't carry his religion into
business. If I had been carrying on my father's
store on a Christian plan, godly plan, I would
have had a jack-knife for the third man when
he called for it. Then I would have actually done
him a kindness, and I would have received a
reward myself, which it would have been my
duty to take.
There are some over-pious Christian people who
think if you take any profit on anything you sell
that you are an unrighteous man. On the contrary,
you would be a criminal to sell goods for
less than they cost. You have no right to do
that. You cannot trust a man with your money
who cannot take care of his own. You cannot
trust a man in your family that is not true to his
own wife. You cannot trust a man in the world
that does not begin with his own heart, his own
character, and his own life. It would have been
my duty to have furnished a jack-knife to the
third man, or the second, and to have sold it to
him and actually profited myself. I have no more
right to sell goods without making a profit on
them than I have to overcharge him dishonestly
beyond what they are worth. But I should so
sell each bill of goods that the person to whom
I sell shall make as much as I make.
To live and let live is the principle of the
gospel, and the principle of every-day common
sense. Oh, young man, hear me; live as you go
along. Do not wait until you have reached my
years before you begin to enjoy anything of this
life. If I had the millions back, or fifty cents of
it, which I have tried to earn in these years, it
would not do me anything like the good that it
does me now in this almost sacred presence to-
night. Oh, yes, I am paid over and over a hundredfold
to-night for dividing as I have tried to
do in some measure as I went along through the
years. I ought not speak that way, it sounds
egotistic, but I am old enough now to be excused for
that. I should have helped my fellow-men, which
I have tried to do, and every one should try to do,
and get the happiness of it. The man who goes
home with the sense that he has stolen a dollar
that day, that he has robbed a man of what was his
honest due, is not going to sweet rest. He arises
tired in the morning, and goes with an unclean
conscience to his work the next day. He is not a
successful man at all, although he may have
laid up millions. But the man who has gone
through life dividing always with his fellow-men,
making and demanding his own rights and his
own profits, and giving to every other man his
rights and profits, lives every day, and not only
that, but it is the royal road to great wealth.
The history of the thousands of millionaires shows
that to be the case.
The man over there who said he could not make
anything in a store in Philadelphia has been
carrying on his store on the wrong principle.
Suppose I go into your store to-morrow morning and
ask, ``Do you know neighbor A, who lives one
square away, at house No. 1240?'' ``Oh yes,
I have met him. He deals here at the corner
store.'' ``Where did he come from?'' ``I don't
know.'' ``How many does he have in his family?''
``I don't know.'' ``What ticket does he vote?''
``I don't know.'' ``What church does he go to?''
``I don't know, and don't care. What are you
asking all these questions for?''
If you had a store in Philadelphia would you
answer me like that? If so, then you are
conducting your business just as I carried on my
father's business in Worthington, Massachusetts.
You don't know where your neighbor came from
when he moved to Philadelphia, and you don't
care. If you had cared you would be a rich man
now. If you had cared enough about him to take
an interest in his affairs, to find out what he needed,
you would have been rich. But you go through
the world saying, ``No opportunity to get rich,''
and there is the fault right at your own door.
But another young man gets up over there
and says, ``I cannot take up the mercantile
business.'' (While I am talking of trade it applies
to every occupation.) ``Why can't you go into
the mercantile business?'' ``Because I haven't
any capital.'' Oh, the weak and dudish creature
that can't see over its collar! It makes a person
weak to see these little dudes standing around
the corners and saying, ``Oh, if I had plenty of
capital, how rich I would get.'' ``Young man,
do you think you are going to get rich on capital?''
``Certainly.'' Well, I say, ``Certainly not.'' If
your mother has plenty of money, and she will
set you up in business, you will ``set her up in
business,'' supplying you with capital.
The moment a young man or woman gets more
money than he or she has grown to by practical
experience, that moment he has gotten a curse.
It is no help to a young man or woman to inherit
money. It is no help to your children to leave
them money, but if you leave them education,
if you leave them Christian and noble character,
if you leave them a wide circle of friends, if you
leave them an honorable name, it is far better
than that they should have money. It would be
worse for them, worse for the nation, that they
should have any money at all. Oh, young man, if
you have inherited money, don't regard it as a
help. It will curse you through your years, and
deprive you of the very best things of human
life. There is no class of people to be pitied so
much as the inexperienced sons and daughters of
the rich of our generation. I pity the rich man's
son. He can never know the best things in life.
One of the best things in our life is when a
young man has earned his own living, and when
he becomes engaged to some lovely young woman,
and makes up his mind to have a home of his
own. Then with that same love comes also that
divine inspiration toward better things, and he
begins to save his money. He begins to leave off
his bad habits and put money in the bank. When
he has a few hundred dollars he goes out in the
suburbs to look for a home. He goes to the
savings-bank, perhaps, for half of the value, and
then goes for his wife, and when he takes his bride
over the threshold of that door for the first time
he says in words of eloquence my voice can never
touch: ``I have earned this home myself. It
is all mine, and I divide with thee.'' That is
the grandest moment a human heart may ever
know.
But a rich man's son can never know that.
He takes his bride into a finer mansion, it may be,
but he is obliged to go all the way through it
and say to his wife, ``My mother gave me that,
my mother gave me that, and my mother gave
me this,'' until his wife wishes she had married
his mother. I pity the rich man's son.
The statistics of Massachusetts showed that
not one rich man's son out of seventeen ever dies
rich. I pity the rich man's sons unless they have
the good sense of the elder Vanderbilt, which
sometimes happens. He went to his father and said,
``Did you earn all your money?'' ``I did, my son.
I began to work on a ferry-boat for twenty-five
cents a day.'' ``Then,'' said his son, ``I will have
none of your money,'' and he, too, tried to get
employment on a ferry-boat that Saturday night.
He could not get one there, but he did get a place
for three dollars a week. Of course, if a rich man's
son will do that, he will get the discipline of a poor
boy that is worth more than a university education
to any man. He would then be able to take care
of the millions of his father. But as a rule the
rich men will not let their sons do the very thing
that made them great. As a rule, the rich man
will not allow his son to work--and his mother!
Why, she would think it was a social disgrace
if her poor, weak, little lily-fingered, sissy sort of
a boy had to earn his living with honest toil. I
have no pity for such rich men's sons.
I remember one at Niagara Falls. I think
I remember one a great deal nearer. I think
there are gentlemen present who were at a great
banquet, and I beg pardon of his friends. At a
banquet here in Philadelphia there sat beside me
a kind-hearted young man, and he said, ``Mr.
Conwell, you have been sick for two or three years.
When you go out, take my limousine, and it will
take you up to your house on Broad Street.''
I thanked him very much, and perhaps I ought
not to mention the incident in this way, but I
follow the facts. I got on to the seat with the
driver of that limousine, outside, and when we
were going up I asked the driver, ``How much
did this limousine cost?'' ``Six thousand eight
hundred, and he had to pay the duty on it.''
``Well,'' I said, ``does the owner of this machine
ever drive it himself?'' At that the chauffeur
laughed so heartily that he lost control of his
machine. He was so surprised at the question that
he ran up on the sidewalk, and around a corner
lamp-post out into the street again. And when he
got out into the street he laughed till the whole
machine trembled. He said: ``He drive this machine!
Oh, he would be lucky if he knew enough to get out
when we get there.''
I must tell you about a rich man's son at
The difficulty was I had not then learned
that the foundation of godliness and the foundation
principle of success in business are both the
same precisely. The man who says, ``I cannot
carry my religion into business'' advertises himself
either as being an imbecile in business, or on the
road to bankruptcy, or a thief, one of the three,
sure. He will fail within a very few years. He
certainly will if he doesn't carry his religion into
business. If I had been carrying on my father's
store on a Christian plan, godly plan, I would
have had a jack-knife for the third man when
he called for it. Then I would have actually done
him a kindness, and I would have received a
reward myself, which it would have been my
duty to take.
There are some over-pious Christian people who
think if you take any profit on anything you sell
that you are an unrighteous man. On the contrary,
you would be a criminal to sell goods for
less than they cost. You have no right to do
that. You cannot trust a man with your money
who cannot take care of his own. You cannot
trust a man in your family that is not true to his
own wife. You cannot trust a man in the world
that does not begin with his own heart, his own
character, and his own life. It would have been
my duty to have furnished a jack-knife to the
third man, or the second, and to have sold it to
him and actually profited myself. I have no more
right to sell goods without making a profit on
them than I have to overcharge him dishonestly
beyond what they are worth. But I should so
sell each bill of goods that the person to whom
I sell shall make as much as I make.
To live and let live is the principle of the
gospel, and the principle of every-day common
sense. Oh, young man, hear me; live as you go
along. Do not wait until you have reached my
years before you begin to enjoy anything of this
life. If I had the millions back, or fifty cents of
it, which I have tried to earn in these years, it
would not do me anything like the good that it
does me now in this almost sacred presence to-
night. Oh, yes, I am paid over and over a hundredfold
to-night for dividing as I have tried to
do in some measure as I went along through the
years. I ought not speak that way, it sounds
egotistic, but I am old enough now to be excused for
that. I should have helped my fellow-men, which
I have tried to do, and every one should try to do,
and get the happiness of it. The man who goes
home with the sense that he has stolen a dollar
that day, that he has robbed a man of what was his
honest due, is not going to sweet rest. He arises
tired in the morning, and goes with an unclean
conscience to his work the next day. He is not a
successful man at all, although he may have
laid up millions. But the man who has gone
through life dividing always with his fellow-men,
making and demanding his own rights and his
own profits, and giving to every other man his
rights and profits, lives every day, and not only
that, but it is the royal road to great wealth.
The history of the thousands of millionaires shows
that to be the case.
The man over there who said he could not make
anything in a store in Philadelphia has been
carrying on his store on the wrong principle.
Suppose I go into your store to-morrow morning and
ask, ``Do you know neighbor A, who lives one
square away, at house No. 1240?'' ``Oh yes,
I have met him. He deals here at the corner
store.'' ``Where did he come from?'' ``I don't
know.'' ``How many does he have in his family?''
``I don't know.'' ``What ticket does he vote?''
``I don't know.'' ``What church does he go to?''
``I don't know, and don't care. What are you
asking all these questions for?''
If you had a store in Philadelphia would you
answer me like that? If so, then you are
conducting your business just as I carried on my
father's business in Worthington, Massachusetts.
You don't know where your neighbor came from
when he moved to Philadelphia, and you don't
care. If you had cared you would be a rich man
now. If you had cared enough about him to take
an interest in his affairs, to find out what he needed,
you would have been rich. But you go through
the world saying, ``No opportunity to get rich,''
and there is the fault right at your own door.
But another young man gets up over there
and says, ``I cannot take up the mercantile
business.'' (While I am talking of trade it applies
to every occupation.) ``Why can't you go into
the mercantile business?'' ``Because I haven't
any capital.'' Oh, the weak and dudish creature
that can't see over its collar! It makes a person
weak to see these little dudes standing around
the corners and saying, ``Oh, if I had plenty of
capital, how rich I would get.'' ``Young man,
do you think you are going to get rich on capital?''
``Certainly.'' Well, I say, ``Certainly not.'' If
your mother has plenty of money, and she will
set you up in business, you will ``set her up in
business,'' supplying you with capital.
The moment a young man or woman gets more
money than he or she has grown to by practical
experience, that moment he has gotten a curse.
It is no help to a young man or woman to inherit
money. It is no help to your children to leave
them money, but if you leave them education,
if you leave them Christian and noble character,
if you leave them a wide circle of friends, if you
leave them an honorable name, it is far better
than that they should have money. It would be
worse for them, worse for the nation, that they
should have any money at all. Oh, young man, if
you have inherited money, don't regard it as a
help. It will curse you through your years, and
deprive you of the very best things of human
life. There is no class of people to be pitied so
much as the inexperienced sons and daughters of
the rich of our generation. I pity the rich man's
son. He can never know the best things in life.
One of the best things in our life is when a
young man has earned his own living, and when
he becomes engaged to some lovely young woman,
and makes up his mind to have a home of his
own. Then with that same love comes also that
divine inspiration toward better things, and he
begins to save his money. He begins to leave off
his bad habits and put money in the bank. When
he has a few hundred dollars he goes out in the
suburbs to look for a home. He goes to the
savings-bank, perhaps, for half of the value, and
then goes for his wife, and when he takes his bride
over the threshold of that door for the first time
he says in words of eloquence my voice can never
touch: ``I have earned this home myself. It
is all mine, and I divide with thee.'' That is
the grandest moment a human heart may ever
know.
But a rich man's son can never know that.
He takes his bride into a finer mansion, it may be,
but he is obliged to go all the way through it
and say to his wife, ``My mother gave me that,
my mother gave me that, and my mother gave
me this,'' until his wife wishes she had married
his mother. I pity the rich man's son.
The statistics of Massachusetts showed that
not one rich man's son out of seventeen ever dies
rich. I pity the rich man's sons unless they have
the good sense of the elder Vanderbilt, which
sometimes happens. He went to his father and said,
``Did you earn all your money?'' ``I did, my son.
I began to work on a ferry-boat for twenty-five
cents a day.'' ``Then,'' said his son, ``I will have
none of your money,'' and he, too, tried to get
employment on a ferry-boat that Saturday night.
He could not get one there, but he did get a place
for three dollars a week. Of course, if a rich man's
son will do that, he will get the discipline of a poor
boy that is worth more than a university education
to any man. He would then be able to take care
of the millions of his father. But as a rule the
rich men will not let their sons do the very thing
that made them great. As a rule, the rich man
will not allow his son to work--and his mother!
Why, she would think it was a social disgrace
if her poor, weak, little lily-fingered, sissy sort of
a boy had to earn his living with honest toil. I
have no pity for such rich men's sons.
I remember one at Niagara Falls. I think
I remember one a great deal nearer. I think
there are gentlemen present who were at a great
banquet, and I beg pardon of his friends. At a
banquet here in Philadelphia there sat beside me
a kind-hearted young man, and he said, ``Mr.
Conwell, you have been sick for two or three years.
When you go out, take my limousine, and it will
take you up to your house on Broad Street.''
I thanked him very much, and perhaps I ought
not to mention the incident in this way, but I
follow the facts. I got on to the seat with the
driver of that limousine, outside, and when we
were going up I asked the driver, ``How much
did this limousine cost?'' ``Six thousand eight
hundred, and he had to pay the duty on it.''
``Well,'' I said, ``does the owner of this machine
ever drive it himself?'' At that the chauffeur
laughed so heartily that he lost control of his
machine. He was so surprised at the question that
he ran up on the sidewalk, and around a corner
lamp-post out into the street again. And when he
got out into the street he laughed till the whole
machine trembled. He said: ``He drive this machine!
Oh, he would be lucky if he knew enough to get out
when we get there.''
I must tell you about a rich man's son at
- foundation [faun´deiʃən]
n.建立；基金；地基 (初中英语单词) - actually [´æktʃuəli] ad.事实上；实际上 (初中英语单词)
- criminal [´kriminəl] a.犯罪的 n.罪犯 (初中英语单词)
- sacred [´seikrid] a.神圣的；庄严的 (初中英语单词)
- measure [´meʒə] n.量度；范围 vt.测量 (初中英语单词)
- stolen [´stəulən] steal 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- circle [´sə:kəl] n.圆圈 v.环绕；盘旋 (初中英语单词)
- generation [,dʒenə´reiʃən] n.发生；世代；同龄人 (初中英语单词)
- discipline [´disiplin] n.纪律；训练 (初中英语单词)
- pardon [´pɑ:dən] n.&vt.原谅；饶恕；赦免 (初中英语单词)
- incident [´insidənt] n.小事件；事变 (初中英语单词)
- precisely [pri´saisli] ad.精确地；刻板地 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- inspiration [,inspi´reiʃən] n.鼓舞；灵感；启发 (高中英语单词)
- threshold [´θreʃhəuld] n.门槛；入门；开端 (高中英语单词)
- mansion [´mænʃən] n.大厦；宅第；官邸 (高中英语单词)
- heartily [´hɑ:tili] ad.衷心地；亲切地 (高中英语单词)
- sidewalk [´saidwɔ:k] n.人行道 (高中英语单词)
- bankruptcy [´bæŋkrʌptsi] n.破产 (英语四级单词)
- gotten [´gɔtn] get的过去分词 (英语四级单词)
- eloquence [´eləkwəns] n.雄辩；口才 (英语四级单词)
- statistics [stə´tistiks] n.统计学；统计 (英语四级单词)
- niagara [nai´ægərə] n.尼亚加拉河 (英语四级单词)
- inexperienced [,iniks´piəriənst] a.缺乏经验的 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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