principles to a young man's business life. The question is asked, and as
often discussed: "Is a life built upon religious principles really
compatible with a young man's business success?" Or sometimes it is put:
"Does it really pay to be honest in business?" Or again: "Can a young
fellow be religious and yet successful?" Of course all are but
variations of the same question.
Now the simple fact of the matter boiled down is that a business success
is absolutely impossible upon any other basis than an honorable one,
followed upon lines of the very strictest honesty.
The great trouble with young men is that their ideas are altogether too
much influenced by a few unfortunate examples of apparent success which
are prominent--too prominent, alas!--in American life to-day. These
examples, for the most part representing politicians, are regarded in
the eyes of the world as successful; that is, they are talked about
incessantly; interviewed by reporters; they lavishly buy diamonds for
their wives and build costly houses; and all these are duly reported in
the newspapers. Young men read these things and ask themselves, "If he
can, why not I?" Then they begin to look around for some "short cut to
success," as one young fellow expressed it to me not long since. And it
is precisely through this method of "cutting across lots" in business
that scores of young men find themselves, after a while, completely
baffled. And the man who has once had about him an unsavory taint in his
business methods rarely--very rarely--rids himself of that atmosphere in
the eyes of his confreres. How often we see some young man in business
representative of the very best qualities that should win success! Every
one agrees that he is brilliant. "He is clever," is the general verdict.
He impresses one well in his manner, he is thoroughly businesslike, is
energetic, and yet, somehow or other, he never seems to get into a place
and stick there. People wonder at it, and excuse it on the ground that
he has not quite found his right place. But some day the secret is
explained. "Yes, he _is_ clever," says some old business man, "but,
don't you know, he isn't--well, he isn't just safe!" Just safe! How much
that expresses; how clearly that defines hundreds and hundreds of the
smartest young men in business to-day! He is everything else, but he
isn't "just safe"! He is not dishonest in any way, but he is, what is
equally as bad, not quite reliable. To attain success he has, in other
words, tried to "cut across lots." And rainbow-chasing is really a very
commendable business in comparison with a young man's search for the
"royal road to success." No success worth attaining is easy; the greater
the obstacles to overcome the surer is the success when attained. "Royal
roads" are poor highways to travel in any pursuit, and especially in a
business calling.
It is strange how reluctant young men are to accept as the most vital
truth in life that the most absolute honesty is the only kind of honesty
that succeeds in business. It is not a question of religion or
religious beliefs. Honesty does not depend upon any religious creed or
dogma that was ever conceived. It is a question of a young man's own
conscience. He knows what is right and what is wrong. And yet, simple as
the matter is, it is astonishing how difficult it is of understanding.
An honest course in business seems too slow to the average young man. "I
can't afford to plod along. I must strike, and strike quickly," is the
sentiment. Ah yes, my friend, but not dishonestly. No young man can
afford to even think of dishonesty. Success on honorable lines may
sometimes seem slower in coming, but when it does come it outrivals in
permanency all the so-called successes gained by other methods. To look
at the methods of others is always a mistake. The successes of to-day
are not given to the imitator, but to the originator. It makes no
difference how other men may succeed--their success is theirs and not
yours. You cannot partake of it. Every man is a law unto himself. The
most absolute integrity is the one and the only sure foundation of
success. Such a success is lasting and the only one which wins respect.
Other kinds of successes may seem so, but it is all in the seeming and
not in the reality. Let a young man swerve from the path of honesty and
it will surprise him how quickly every avenue of a lasting success is
closed against him. Making money dishonestly is the most difficult thing
to accomplish in the world, just as lying is the practice most wearing
to the mind. It is the young man of unquestioned integrity who is
selected for the important position. No business man ever places his
business in the hands of a young man whom he feels he cannot absolutely
trust. And to be trusted means to be honest. Honesty, and that alone,
commands confidence. An honest life well directed is the only life for a
young man to lead. It is the one life that is compatible with the
largest and surest business success.
A religious life, whether in business or out of business, is one which
every young man not only should, but can follow. It partakes of no
gloom, as many suppose; it means no depression of spirits. It means
simply the living of an upright life, a life of respectability. Religion
is nothing more nor less than an adherence to the simple code I have
presented: a recognition of a God, and an allegiance in manner of life
to that God. And that manner of living is simply a healthy development
of the spiritual nature--keeping close to one's best instincts. The
communion of a man with his Creator comes with such a manner of living.
But this is all that a religious life means. That comprises true
religion, at once the easiest and the safest element for any young man
to take into his life. It will stand the severest test, and will prove a
veritable Rock of Gibraltar to him in time of anxiety and trouble.
VIII
HIS ATTITUDE TOWARD WOMEN
The attitude which a young man assumes toward women is one of the surest
index-fingers to his character, and nothing stamps him with such
unerring accuracy before men. And if this be true in a general sense of
his attitude toward the whole sex, it applies with particular force to
his position as son. "As is the son so will be the husband," is a
well-known saying, and it is likewise true that as is the son so is the
man. When a young man reverences his mother it is easy for him to
believe in the nobility of the sex to which she belongs. And it is a
correct belief.
That women are morally better and spiritually nobler than men should be
believed by every young man. No ideal of the best and truest qualities
of womanhood is too high for him to set for himself. Such a belief of
his young manhood will become a conviction of his later manhood. I know
that it is the fashion of some men to speak lightly of women and
womanhood; and young men in their susceptible years are sometimes apt to
listen to these low standards, and inclined to accept them or be
influenced by them. But of one thing every young fellow may be assured:
that the man who speaks of woman in any but the most respectful terms is
either a knave or a fool--very often he is both. And this is one of the
few rules in life to which there is no exception. I wish that young men
would more closely associate their mothers with women in general, and
realize that every slur cast upon women as a sex is a slur upon their
mothers. This is the feeling which prompted General Grant to give a
lesson in politeness which will always be told of him. The story is
doubtless familiar to all how one evening an officer came into camp,
and in a rollicking mood said to those assembled:
"I have such a rich story that I want to tell you. There are no women
present, are there?"
Whereupon General Grant, lifting his eyes from the paper which he was
reading, and looking his officer square in the eye, said slowly, but
deliberately:
"No, but there are gentlemen present."
The rebuke was masterly, and it is one which young men cannot too
vividly remember.
Nothing in this world stamps a man more decisively in the eyes of his
fellow-men than the practice of telling "off-color" stories in which
women are concerned. I have often seen this practice followed, but never
yet have I seen a single instance when the story-teller did not lower
himself in the estimation of his listeners. Men are prone to laugh at
these stories when they are told them; but privately I have noticed
that they form their own opinion of the man who tells them, and the
opinion is always of one kind. It is the man who upholds womanhood who
commands the respect of other men; the man who attempts to lower it
invariably invites their distrust. The men who hold that "every woman
has her price" are the men who, in the estimation of other men, have no
price at all, commercially, socially, or morally. The man who uses such
an expression regarding woman simply apes the "smart" utterance of the
first fool that God ever made, and after whose pattern all the other
fools in this world were created. A man who truly loves his mother,
wife, sister, or sweetheart never tells a story which lowers her sex in
the eyes of others. He who tells such a story is always lacking in some
one respect, and generally it is common decency. I have dwelt upon this
point because I should like young fellows to believe more firmly than
they do that it is not "caddishness" or "babyishness" or
"goody-goodyness" to refuse to listen to a story which makes light of
women; it is one of the manliest qualities which a young fellow can
show, and deep down in his heart every man will respect a young man for
such a position. The higher order of men never forget that, being born
of woman, they owe an obligation to their mother's sex which, as loyal
sons and true gentlemen, forbids them to listen without protest to
offensive stories in which woman is concerned. And no young man can
listen to this class of stories without offending his mother, his
sister, or the girl who a little later will teach him, through her own
sweet life, that whatever is said to the moral detriment of her sex is a
lie, and a reflection upon the two women who, one at the beginning of
his life and the other at its ending, will prove his best friends--his
mother and his wife.
It has often been said before, but it is one of those truths which can
as often be said again, that a woman is a man's truest and most loving
friend, first, last, and all the time. And particularly is this so of a
mother. I know perfectly well that young men are apt sometimes to think
that their mothers are unreasonable. And they are, sometimes,
undoubtedly, and a little selfish, too. But one point must not be
forgotten: it is an unreasonableness and a selfishness born of a
mother's surest instinct for the best interests of her boy. I can look
back to my earliest years of young manhood and see where, again and
again, I thought my mother was either wrong or unreasonable or prone to
be a trifle too cautious. But I can also look back now, and I cannot see
one instance in which after-events did not prove her to be right. And
to-day it is easy to say that if it has been given me to achieve even
the smallest measure of success in my life thus far, it is all and
entirely due to the influence of my mother, and to my absolute
confidence in that influence. No woman has been so much to me, no woman
is more to me at this moment that I write, than she who is my mother, my
confidante, my truest and best friend--always watchful, always loving,
always true, always the same. And gladly do I write this loving tribute
to her, grateful that I can place it in her hands rather than on her
grave.
There is no deeper or greater satisfaction to a man than to be able to
have his mother live to see him fairly launched on a successful career
of usefulness. If his father dies before he has made his mark in the
world he does not seem to feel it so keenly. But somehow he always wants
his mother to live long enough to see for herself that she did not give
him life for naught, and that the world is a little better off for the
being which she gave unto it. There wells up within his nature a
peculiar sense of pride when some day his mother comes quietly to him,
and putting her arms around his neck, says, with all the tenderness of
a mother's love, "You have done well, my boy. Now I am content to go."
No matter how hard a man may have worked, such approval comes to him as
his sweetest and richest reward. The applause of the world is little
compared with such a motherly benediction, and more precious to him is
the remembrance of that short sentence in after years than all the
honors that can be showered upon him or the riches that may come to him.
It has been my privilege to hear this sacred thought from the lips of
more than one of the most famous of American men--men who are to-day
leaders in their professions, others who have gone to their graves
crowned with the ripest honors and fullest laurels of the world.
For men, even in their most mature years, are, after all, nothing but
grown boys. The fond stroke of a mother's hand is as welcome at forty as
at fourteen. The world never looks so bright to a man as when he sits
at his mother's side with her arms around him. A woman never seems so
gentle as when she fondly strokes the recreant lock from his brow, after
a trying day, and says, in that voice so familiar, but ever sweet, "You
are tired, are you not, dear?" Ah, those women who come into a room when
a man is almost worn out, and bring new life and new hope and new spirit
with them! Those God-inspired mothers who say so much in a smile, who
speak so lovingly to us in a look, who send a thrill of confidence
through a man in a tender pressure of the hand! They know us so well.
They knew us when we were children, but how much better they know us
when we are men! We try to convince them that we are no longer boys, but
only a quiet little smile and a fond little petting shows us the fallacy
of our own words. They stroke our cheeks, and somehow the mind seems
more restful and the brain ceases to throb. The things we try to hide
from them are the very things we tell them about. They know with a
single look just what is troubling us, and although they never ask us,
we pour out to them our worries just as we did when we were children.
The quarrels of the playground have only become the worries of business,
and the baby of the cradle has simply become the baby of the mother's
heart.
It is easy for a man to think well of woman when he can look at her
through the eyes of a good mother. And it is this which I want every
young fellow to do. His mother should be the central figure of womanhood
to him--his ideal, his standard; and while necessarily other women will
suffer in comparison, it will only be in the respect that to the one he
is a son, while to the others he is a man. The tenderest solicitude
which a young man can show to his mother, the most unremitting care he
can give her, are none too good for the life he owes to her. And the
more tender his feelings for her the stronger he will find his faith
grow in her sex. There is no influence to be compared with that of a
good woman over the life of a young man. It means everything to him, his
success in every phase of life. Men are by nature coarse and brutal; it
is the influence of woman which softens them. And we ought to be
softened as much as we can. The good Lord knows we need it badly enough.
But no influence is productive of the best and surest results unless we
make ourselves susceptible to it. If we lack faith in woman, if we fail
in the right ideal of womanhood, all her influence will be as naught
upon us. From the beginning of the world woman has been man's leader.
She has made him what he is to-day. All the qualities which we admire in
men come from woman's influence. And a young man starting out in life
cannot trust to an influence so sure and so safe as that which comes to
him from the being of whose life he is a part, or in whose heart he
finds a supreme place. Man's best friend is the woman who loves him.
That should be the faith of every young man toward woman; that should be
his absolute conviction, and he should show it by an attitude of respect
and deference toward her.
IX
THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE
Necessarily the question of marriage to a young man is an important
one--perhaps the most important that is given him to solve when he
reaches a marriageable age. To some young men it is easy of solution.
They fall in love with some girl who occupies their every thought, they
are married, and, as the story-books generally have it, "they live
happily ever afterward." But to others it takes the form of a problem.
They are troubled with sentimental perplexities; and if these do not
enter into the matter, then it is either a question of the right girl,
the means with which to marry, or the proper age. That the matter takes
on one of these phases with the majority of young men there can be no
doubt, since few men marry the girl who first strikes their fancy.
The first point to present in this question of marriage is the principle
of it: that it is unquestionably for the good of almost every young man
that he shall marry. There are no two sides to this for the great
majority of young men. Of course there are reasons why a man, in some
special instance, should choose to lead a single life; in fact, there
are excellent reasons why it is best that some men should. I have known
men to have inner conflicts with themselves for years, and then
resolutely decide upon celibacy. Such decisions make heroes of some men.
There are circumstances which sometimes enter into a man's life that
make celibacy judicious and wise--circumstances not of his own choosing.
There are men whose lofty estimate of women will not permit of their
asking a woman to share what God in his wisdom has chosen to have them
bear. That type of men exists. But to the majority of men it is decreed
to marry and that they shall live in marriage.
When a young man deliberately lays out for himself a single life based
upon any other than the strongest physical or mental reasons, he makes
the mistake of his lifetime. If a young man refuses to marry because of
a lack of faith in womanhood, or a distrust of the existence of those
qualities generally attributed to woman, he errs, and he errs fatally.
And the best evidence of this is found in the incontrovertible fact that
the happiest men in the world to-day are the men who have believed in
good womanhood, and have shown that belief by taking a good woman into
their hearts and homes. There can be no disputing the fact that a man's
life is never complete in its fullest happiness until that life is made
whole and complete by the love of a true woman. The simplest reference
to the history of men since the creation of the world will demonstrate
the truth of this assertion. Man has done nothing without woman; without
her counsel he has become as a cipher in the world. Left alone, aside
from the question of influence, he is helpless. No man ever lived who
knows, for example, how to take care of himself. The absence of a wife
from home has demonstrated to many a man how large and important a part
she is of it and of him. The right kind of a wife knows better what is
essential to her husband's comfort than he does himself--far better. He
waits for illness to come, and then combats it, frequently when too
late. But the wife sees the symptoms and uses preventives. Her keen
insight tells her that her husband is unwell when sometimes he is not
conscious of it himself. Women, we are told, know little of business;
yet when business troubles come to a man a good wife is the source of
all comfort to him. When he despairs she is hopeful. By her influence,
perhaps, more than by what she actually accomplishes, she brings new
hope, new courage, and points the way to a new beginning. How often
women have been the means of averting business disasters or the
multiplying of failures with further implications the world will never
know; but there are men who know it, and they are the men of whom to
ask, "Is marriage a failure?"
It is an unfortunate fact that some men never get to a point where they
understand woman. And yet to know woman, to properly understand her, to
correctly interpret her best motives, is the deepest lesson that life
can teach a man. Every man with a fair mind who clasps a good woman to
his breast and calls her mother, wife, or sister will understand the
import of these words. How a man can be a hater of woman I cannot
conceive when through her so much can be added to his life. Nothing is
such an incentive to a man to make the best of himself as the knowledge
that there is some one in the world who believes he is just the
cleverest fellow alive; that there are eyes, far lovelier than all the
stars in heaven to him, which sparkle at his coming; that there is a
loving, womanly heart which beats quicker at the sound of his footsteps;
that there is a nature ever ready to sympathize with him in his troubles
and gladden at his victories--a dear, sweet, loving woman, who laughs
with him, and puts her soft, loving arms around him when he is in
trouble, rouses him to his better self, making him feel that, after all,
this world is not such a bad place to live in. This, as many a man
knows, is not a picture drawn from fancy; it finds its living reflection
in thousands of homes all through this land and across the sea, in homes
where men are happiest and where women are most content.
The bachelor is ofttimes happy in his single state--that is, for a
bachelor. He may console himself with the reflection that he accounts
only to himself, that he is his own master, can go where he will and do
as he chooses so long as he obeys the laws of society and of the land;
but in his heart he knows he is but half of a complete thing. He knows
that there is something lacking in his life which, if supplied, would
make the complete whole. Business success may come to him, wealth may be
his; but one way or another he feels the absence of some one to enjoy
his successes with him. He wonders why it is that he does not always put
forth his best efforts. He marvels whether, after all, a man does not
need something outside of himself to draw him on and incite him to his
utmost exertions. He may be courted for his money, he may have
friendships innumerable, every comfort may be in his rooms; yet moments
come to him when persistent thought points to something lacking in his
life to round it out. Travel as he will, live on the best the world can
provide, he feels, as I have heard it said of the millionaire owner of
one of the greatest newspapers in the land, roaming from one land to
another, that few men are ofttimes more miserable in their daily lives
than is he. He has everything the heart can wish for; more wealth than
he can spend; costly residences on this side of the ocean and on the
other; swift yachts are his, and swifter horses. Yet, while driving one
day, and seeing in a passing carriage a man of his acquaintance sitting
beside a devoted wife and two children, he said to a friend, "That man's
whole fortune is not one half of my yearly income, and yet his life is a
far happier one." And when his friend asked him in what the other's
happiness exceeded his, James Gordon Bennett replied, "In having a good
wife, and a lovely child for each knee."