Business Men and Business Habits

For many years I have had an opportunity of conferring with successful merchants and through them having an insight into commercial ways, so that I ought now to be able to say something to you that, will be useful. I wrote toa leading London business man the other day, and he replies : —

«The true man of business, like the poet, is born and not made. He is not drawn from one class, and is found equally amongst the rich and the poor. Business ambition can very well exist without the pinch of privation, and some of the hardest workers and most successful men 1 know have long passed the point at which the result in profit was essential to them. Good work becomes in a sense its own reward, and in the faithful performance of duty a man seems, in

a limited way, even here to enter into the joy of his Lord.”

In this testimony I thoroughly believe. The only drawback from this witness is (as he says himself) that his father was born before him, and that he had not much experience of early and difficult struggles. In Manchester I knew a merchant of the name of Mr. James Sidebottom, a man eminent in the commercial world, and esteemed by all who knew him. He told me that he learned to write at a night-school in sand with a skewer. For many years, he further informed me, if any man wanted to see him it must be before eight or after eight; that is to say, before eight in the morning or after eight o’clock at night! Yet what whining we now hear about long hours, and what a pother is made throughout society for early-closings and half-holidays! Nota word have I to say against these when they are well used; I only want to point out that the men of a former generation who rose from the humblest beginnings to the highest mercantile eminence were men who had to spend long hours in business toil,

This view is confirmed by a letter which I received in answer to one of mine from the Mansion House. The then Lord Mayor, referring to this matter of long hours, says : —

‘Hor the summer and autumn months I used to rise at 6 A.M. on Mondays, and frequently found myself occupied with correspondence and other items until midnight. Wednesdays and Thursdays were equally busy days. This was before the era of the copying-book, shorthand, and the type-writer. I may add that my health and spirits were never better than in those days of long hours and hard work,”

I have never heard of any men who were anxious for half-holidays doing much in the world. All the correspondence I have had on this subject is from men who have had to toil from ten to twelve hours every day in order to do their work and make their position. Do you know of a single instance of a man who wished to close at five o’clock in the afternoon, and to have a half-holiday every week, and to multiply Bank holidays, who has risen to any mercantile eminence? J have never known such a man either in the law or in the practice of physic, nor have I known of any such man in the ranks of the ministry. In short, all the men I have ever known who have done anything in the world are men who have never troubled themselves about holidays and short hours, but have gone at their work with tremendous will and high purpose. Some of the men who have borne witness worked just as hard for their employers as they ever worked for themselves. I hope this will be the case with you. Do not consider whether’ you are working for yourself or working for some other man: fix your attention upon the work itself, and do it with conscience and with energy, and most indisputably in the long run you shall not fail of your reward.

I asked a Mayor of Norwich to tell me his experience as to hours; he replied thus tersely : —

‘‘Apprenticed at eleven: hours from seven to nine, varied by an extra hour on Saturdays: shop opened on Good Friday and Christmas Day till 10 A.M.”

Nothing about half-holidays here! Nothing about studying as to how to get the most money for the least work! In fact, I never knew a man in my life who made self his study who ever came to any really substantial position either of wealth or influence. Again and again I would say, Know your work; go at it with both hands; never think how little you can do, but how much; never mind what other people think of you or say about you; be resolute in will* and hopeful in heart, and no man can prevent you coming to satisfactory conclusions.

I wrote to Mr. George Williams, whose letter has been already quoted, to ask him what hours he

worked during his early years, and he replies : — D “From 7 A.M. until 7.30 P.M., and later on Saturdays.”

Where is Mr. Williams now? Is there any name more honoured and beloved by the young men of England — rather, by the Christian young men of the whole world? ‘Think of twelve and a half hours per day, and think of additional hours on Saturday! Yet there is no tone of complaint in Mr. Williams’ statement; he does not speak of tyranny, oppression, or slave-driving. The more I hear men groaning and complaining about this so-called slave-driving, the more I wonder what stuff they are made of. I do not deny that in certain cases there is oppression of a hateful kind, and wherever it is discovered it ought to be exposed; at the same time I distinctly hold the opinion that really hard, healthy work never did any man the slightest harm.

A Mayor of Newcastle-on-Tyne favoured me with a reply to a similar inquiry. He says: —

“Ordinary office hours were from nine to six, with an hour for dinner; but once, and sometimes twice weekly, worked in addition from eight o’clock in the evening till two or three o’clock in the morning, despatching steamers, loading general cargo for Continent. No overtime, but with fellow-clerks had supper provided. We did the night-work with pleasure, and always having deep interest in our work.”

Can you wonder at such men rising in the world? The wonder would be if they did not raise themselves to positions of considerable eminence. Surely Providence is on the side of hard work, and always on the side of honesty. I do not hesitate to associate hard work and honesty, as being almost equivalent terms. The scamp at his work is a thief in his heart. He who does as little as he possibly can do cannot do even that little well. We must be honest in our heart before we can be honest in our hand. When any man requires to be watched he is a thief in his soul, though he may keep his hands from vulgar picking and stealing.

Mr. Albert Spicer, M.P., well known in the world of business and in religious circles, answered my question in the following terms : —

“For some years I always left home about a quarter to eight, which enabled me to reach business a little before nine. The time for leaving was six, but of course in the earlier years two or three nights a week it was nearer nine. Later on, one week in three, I used always to be at business at a few minutes after eight; that meant leaving home at about ten minutes past seven; but I only did it for four years.”

Never mind, the point is that he did actually do it, and that to-day he is reaping the results of hard work honestly done.

I have long had the privilege of knowing William Mewburn, Esq., the distinguished Wesleyan philanthropist. I put to Mr. Mewburn the inquiry how many hours a day he worked when he first engaged in business, and he answers me thus : —

“From 9 A.M. to 8 P.M, with an hour and a half for meals.”

Not much half-holiday idea here! Not a word of complaint about the length of time! The work was not done for himself, but for an employer. The fact is, my friend, if we are ever to become anything in life we must remember that strait is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to any kind of eminence that is worth securing. We cannot evade processes of discipline of any real advantage to ourselves. Paul told Timothy to ‘endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” The apostolic advice may be applied to business and professional pursuits. It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. When a young man considers how he can cut off an hour in the morning, and cut off another hour in the evening, and secure three or four half-holidays in the month, he may consider that his business career has closed before it has begun.

I have quoted a testimony in which the writer says the man of’ business is born, not made. That is quite true. It is true of every avocation and profession. The thing you have to discover is, what you can do best; in other words, you have to discover God’s purpose in calling you into the present, state of being. Every man has a destiny. I do not blame some men for failure, simply because in early life they may not have been put into the right course. In some other line of life they might have succeeded, but because of untoward circumstances or rebelliousness on their own part at the beginning they have proceeded in forbidden ways, and have therefore had to face continual disappointment and mortification. It does not follow that because a man is in business he is a business man. I have known many men who are in business that never took a moment’s delight in their avocation. I know of young men who will talk about anything but business. Their hearts are not in their work. I have before my mind’s eye at this moment a man who takes a real hearty delight in every piece of business that he does. I call him a business man as well as a man of business. He does not work merely for the sake of getting a living; he works because he likes his daily occupation. Hear him talk about his business; and business becomes a kind of romance in his way of viewing it. He gives you the record of a day’s work as if he were reading a chapter out of a novel: what he did; how he planned it; how he executed it; how other parties came into the plot; how they viewed the situation; how matters became complicated; then how they became disentangled; and, at the end, how all was settled peaceably and satisfactorily. The man lives in his work; he really enjoys it; apart altogether from the profit which he realises, he has distinct and positive pleasure in his daily service. You may tell me that perhaps he devotes himself too entirely to his business. That is not the case. This friend of mine has his recreations as well as occupations. No man can take a recreation more heartily and sympathetically than he can do. He has his times for shooting; he has his times for visiting his friends: yet somehow he so arranges both his business and his recreation that the one never suffers for the sake of the other. I have known men of business who have found great delight in literary studies, and in love of art. At this moment I am thinking of an American friend who is in a very great way of business. To see him in the store you would imagine that he had never been outside of it; yet, if you follow that man home, you will find that he has one of the best libraries ever owned by a layman. He has a room literally filled with books, and books of a really choice and valuable nature. His books are to him more than bindings. They are not so many pictures in book-form. He pursues a regular course of reading, night after night, in his own study at home. ‘To see him amongst his books you would think he had been born in a library. Whatever he does, he does intensely; that is to say, with his whole heart and mind. Is his time, then, given up wholly to business and to reading? Nothing of the kind. He is ready to drive you into the most beautiful parts of his neighbourhood. He is ready to entertain his friends summer and winter. — He is to be found engaged in Church work alike amongst adults and in the Sunday-school. Everything he does is done by rule and measure. He does not work by the rule of thumb, and thus land himself in continual confusion; he knows what is to be done in the morning, what is to be done in the afternoon, and what is to be done at night. The man’s life is a plan, and so thoroughly does he handle it in all its parts and relations that it works smoothly and fluently and

usefully. I knew an English Member of Parliament who was one of the largest employers in the north of England. He was a popular public speaker; a president of a Chamber of Commerce; a leading manufacturer; in fact, what is termed a millionaire. Was he a mere money-grubber? On the contrary; he too had his beautiful library, which he carefully and systematically read; and he too had his little gallery of pictures, every one of which he bought on his own judgment. He did not tell a bookseller to fit him up a library, or a picture-dealer to dress his walls with canvas. Every book he bought he had some reason for buying; and every picture he possessed had appealed to his own taste and fancy, His home was a picture of loveliness. But perhaps he was born rich? Nothing of the kind. He was born a poor boy. He went to the mill in clogs. He worked from early morning till late at night. But then he worked with a will, and with a purpose, and with a conscience, and the result was that everybody who knew him trusted him and honoured him.

The men who succeed are men who go at their work with resolution and determination. This is true in religion as well as in business. The Apostle Paul did not play at preaching: nothing stopped him; no conflict could divert him from his purpose; he was not a fine-weather Christian. “This one thing I do” was his motto; even in the presence of threatening storms he said, ‘‘ None of these things move me.” I call the Apostle Paul a business man. He delighted in his work. What is the consequence? That to-day he stands as the foremost name in Christian loyalty and Christian service. I do not scruple to associate the name of the Apostle Paul with the high function of commercial life. We may get many lessons from the New Testament in business as well as in theological doctrine. The lives of the apostles are lives of honest men devoted to hard work, pursuing great objects with burning zeal. Do not try to be a rose-water man of business. The young men I have known have often cut pitiable figures after the examples of their hard-working fathers. If I take the city of Manchester alone, and think of the fathers, and then ask, What has become of the sons? I am perfectly amazed at the result. The fathers came to business in clogs; the sons come in patent-leather boots. The fathers walked’ to business; many of the sons come in dogcarts. In many instances the fathers brought their food in their pockets; many of the sons come with glaring flowers in their button-holes. The fathers had no expensive habits; many of the sons come burning the best cigars on their way to the office. Will the sons ever be as strong and great as the fathers were? Never. They are not made of the same stuff. They have had more schooling of a technical kind, but they have not had training in the academy of hard work. Nor have they graduated in the university of manifold and alltesting experience.

I conclude this chapter with an extract from a public print : —

“A native of Denny, Mr. Young entered on business life in Glasgow, and in 1851 went out to Calcutta, where he established himself in business as a tea and coffee planter. From early youth he had been remarkably self-reliant and industrious; and in the East he attained wealth at a comparatively early age, commanding the respect of all honourable men with whom he had to do, and dreaded by all who were otherwise. One who knew him all through his business career testifies that Mr. Young, while a keen man of business, never once stepped aside from the severest rectitude, however great and tempting the bait. His Christianity was genuine, its most distinguishing characteristics being simplicity, catholicity, and action; and he took the deepest. practical interest in the work of Christian missionaries in India. He delighted in intercourse with native Christians, and befriended them in many ways. Whilst loyal to his own denomination, the United Presbyterian, in which he was a devoted elder, his heart, purse, and house were continually open for all whom he deemed the servants of Jesus Christ. The great Baptist mission of Backergunge is especially indebted to him, and many a humble Christian there will regret his departure. Many a missionary’s home was made joyous, and many a weary toiler heartened by his brief, bright visits. Mr. Young had a fluent and graphic pen; and a few years ago his report of a tour through the mission stations in Hastern Bengal was printed for private circulation. Mr. Young was the stay and helper of many widows, orphans, and poor people both in Calcutta and Helensburgh, as well as in his native town of Denny, and in many other places.”

Reader, go thou and do likewise, and God will — bring thee to great strength and enduring honour.