The Book of Business Etiquette

"Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: and Paul, as his custom was, went in unto them, and for three sabbath days reasoned with them from the scriptures, opening and alleging, that it behoved the Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom, said he, I proclaim unto you, is the Christ. And some of them were persuaded, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.

But the Jews, being moved with jealousy, took unto them certain vile fellows of the rabble, and gathering a crowd, set the city on an uproar; and assaulting the house of Jason, they sought to bring them forth to the people. And when they found them not, they dragged Jason and certain brethren before the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; whom Jason hath received: and these all act contrary to the decrees of C?sar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. And they troubled the multitude and the rulers of the city, when they heard these things. And when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go."-Acts xvii. 1-9 (R.V.).

"Paul, and Silvanus, and Timothy, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace."-1 Thess. i. 1 (R.V.).

THESSALONICA, now called Saloniki, was in the first century of our era a large and flourishing city. It was situated at the north-eastern corner of the Thermaic gulf, on the line of the great Egnatian road, which formed the main connection by land between Italy and the East. It was an important commercial centre, with a mixed population of Greeks, Romans, and Jews. The Jews, who at the present day amount to some twenty thousand, were numerous enough to have a synagogue of their own; and we can infer from the Book of Acts (xvii. 4) that it was frequented by many of the better spirits among the Gentiles also. Unconsciously, and as the event too often proved, unwillingly, the Dispersion was preparing the way of the Lord.

To this city the Apostle Paul came, attended by Silas and Timothy, in the course of his second missionary journey. He had just left Philippi, dearest to his heart of all his churches; for there, more than anywhere else, the sufferings of Christ had abounded in him, and his consolations also had been abundant in Christ. He came to Thessalonica with the marks of the lictors' rods upon his body; but to him they were the marks of Jesus; not warnings to change his path, but tokens that the Lord was taking him into fellowship with Himself, and binding him more strictly to His service. He came with the memory of his converts' kindness warm upon his heart; conscious that, amid whatever disappointments, a welcome awaited the gospel, which admitted its messenger into the joy of his Lord. We need not wonder, then, that the Apostle kept to his custom, and in spite of the malignity of the Jews, made his way, when Sabbath came, to the synagogue of Thessalonica.

His evangelistic ministry is very briefly described by St. Luke. For three Sabbath days he addressed himself to his fellow-countrymen. He took the Scriptures into his hand, that is, of course, the Old Testament Scriptures,-and opening the mysterious casket, as the picturesque words in Acts describe his method, he brought out and set before his auditors, as its inmost and essential secret, the wonderful idea that the Christ whom they all expected, the Messiah of God, must die and rise again from the dead. That was not what ordinary Jewish readers found in the law, the prophets, or the psalms; but, once persuaded that this interpretation was true, it was not difficult to believe that the Jesus whom Paul preached was the Christ for whom they all hoped. Luke tells us that some were persuaded; but they cannot have been many: his account agrees with the representation of the Epistle (i. 9) that the church at Thessalonica was mainly Gentile. Of the "chief women not a few," who were among the first converts, we know nothing; the exhortations in both Epistles make it plain that what Paul left at Thessalonica was what we should call a working-class congregation. The jealousy of the Jews, who resorted to the device which had already proved successful at Philippi, compelled Paul and his friends to leave the city prematurely. The mission, indeed, had probably lasted longer than most readers infer from Acts xvii. Paul had had time to make his character and conduct impressive to the church, and to deal with each one of them as a father with his own children (ii. 11); he had wrought night and day with his own hands for a livelihood (2 Thess. iii. 8); he had twice received help from the Philippians (Phil. iv. 15, 16). But although this implies a stay of some duration, much remained to be done; and the natural anxiety of the Apostle, as he thought of his inexperienced disciples, was intensified by the reflection that he had left them exposed to the malignity of his and their enemies. What means that malignity employed-what violence and what calumny-the Epistle itself enables us to see; meantime, it is sufficient to say that the pressure of these things upon the Apostle's spirit was the occasion of his writing this letter. He had tried in vain to get back to Thessalonica; he had condemned himself to solitude in a strange city that he might send Timothy to them; he must hear whether they stand fast in their Christian calling. On his return from this mission Timothy joined Paul in Corinth with a report, cheering on the whole, yet not without its graver side, concerning the Thessalonian believers; and the first Epistle is the apostolic message in these circumstances. It is, in all probability, the earliest of the New Testament writings; it is certainly the earliest extant of Paul's: if we except the decree in Acts xv., it is the earliest piece of Christian writing in existence.[1]

The names mentioned in the address are all well known-Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy. The three are united in the greeting, and are sometimes, apparently, included in the "we" or "us" of the Epistle; but they are not joint authors of it. It is the Epistle of Paul, who includes them in the salutation out of courtesy, as in the First to the Corinthians he includes Sosthenes, and in Galatians "all the brethren that are with me"; a courtesy the more binding on this occasion that Silas and Timothy had shared with him his missionary work in Thessalonica. In First and Second Thessalonians only, of all his letters, the Apostle adds nothing to his name to indicate the character in which he writes; he neither calls himself an apostle, nor a servant of Jesus Christ. The Thessalonians knew him simply for what he was; his apostolic dignity was yet unassailed by false brethren; the simple name was enough. Silas comes before Timothy as an older man, and a fellow-labourer of longer standing. In the Book of Acts he is described as a prophet, and as one of the chief men among the brethren; he had been associated with Paul all through this journey; and though we know very little of him, the fact that he was chosen one of the bearers of the apostolic decree, and that he afterwards attached himself to Paul, justifies the inference that he heartily sympathised with the evangelising of the heathen. Timothy was apparently one of Paul's own converts. Carefully instructed in childhood by a pious mother and grandmother, he had been won to the faith of Christ during the first tour of the Apostle in Asia Minor. He was naturally timid, but kept the faith in spite of the persecutions which then awaited it; and when Paul returned, he found that the steadfastness and other graces of his spiritual son had won an honourable name in the local churches. He determined to take him with him, apparently in the character of an evangelist; but before he was ordained by the presbyters, Paul circumcised him, remembering his Jewish descent on the mother's side, and desirous of facilitating his access to the synagogue, in which the work of gospel preaching usually began. Of all the Apostle's assistants he was the most faithful and affectionate. He had the true pastoral spirit, devoid of selfishness, and caring naturally and unfeignedly for the souls of men (Phil. ii. 20 f.). Such were the three who sent their Christian greetings in this Epistle.

The greetings are addressed "to the church of (the) Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." No such address had ever been written or read before, for the community to which it was directed was a new thing in the world. The word translated "church" was certainly familiar enough to all who knew Greek: it was the name given to the citizens of a Greek town assembled for public business; it is the name given in the Greek Bible either to the children of Israel as the congregation of Jehovah, or to any gathering of them for a special purpose; but here it obtains a new significance. The church of the Thessalonians is a church in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the common relation of its members to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ which constitutes them a church in the sense of the Apostle: in contradistinction from all other associations or societies, they form a Christian community. The Jews who met from Sabbath to Sabbath in the synagogue were a church; they were one in the acknowledgment of the Living God, and in their observance of His law; God, as revealed in the Old Testament and in the polity of Israel, was the element or atmosphere of their spiritual life. The citizens of Thessalonica, who met in the theatre to discuss their political interests, were a "church"; they were one in recognising the same constitution and the same ends of civic life; it was in that constitution, in the pursuit of those ends, that they found the atmosphere in which they lived. Paul in this Epistle greets a community distinct from either of these. It is not civic, but religious; though religious, it is neither pagan nor Jewish; it is an original creation, new in its bond of union, in the law by which it lives, in the objects at which it aims; a church in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ.

This newness and originality of Christianity could not fail to impress those who first received it. The gospel made an immeasurable difference to them, a difference almost equally great whether they had been Jews or heathen before; and they were intensely conscious of the gulf which separated their new life from the old. In another epistle Paul describes the condition of Gentiles not yet evangelised. Once, he says, you were apart from Christ, without God, in the world. The world-the great system of things and interests separated from God-was the sphere and element of their life. The gospel found them there, and translated them. When they received it, they ceased to be in the world; they were no longer apart from Christ, and without God: they were in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing could be more revolutionary in those days than to become a Christian: old things passed away; all things became new; all things were determined by the new relation to God and His Son. The difference between the Christian and the non-Christian was as unmistakable and as clear to the Christian mind as the difference between the shipwrecked sailor who has reached the shore and him who is still fighting a hopeless fight with wind and waves. In a country which has long been Christian, that difference tends, to sense at least, and to imagination, to disappear. We are not vividly impressed with the distinction between those who claim to be Christians and those who do not; we do not see a radical unlikeness, and we are sometimes disposed to deny it. We may even feel that we are bound to deny it, were it only in justice to God. He has made all men for Himself; He is the Father of all; He is near to all, even when they are blind to Him; the pressure of His hand is felt and in a measure responded to by all, even when they do not recognise it; to say that any one is ?θεο?, or χωρ?? Χριστο?, or that he is not in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ, seems really to deny both God and man.

Yet what is at issue here is really a question of fact; and among those who have been in contact with the facts, among those, above all, who have had experience of the critical fact-who once were not Christians and now are-there will not be two opinions about it. The difference between the Christian and the non-Christian, though historical accidents have made it less visible, or rather, less conspicuous than it once was, is still as real and as vast as ever. The higher nature of man, intellectual and spiritual, must always have an element in which it lives, an atmosphere surrounding it, principles to guide it, ends to stimulate its action; and it may find all these in either of two places. It may find them in the world-that is, in that sphere of things from which God, so far as man's will and intent goes, is excluded; or it may find them in God Himself and in His Son. It is no objection to this division to say that God cannot be excluded from His own world, that He is always at work there whether acknowledged or not; for the acknowledgment is the essential point; without it, though God is near to man, man is still far from God. Nothing could be a more hopeless symptom in character than the benevolent neutrality which evades this truth; it takes away every motive to evangelise the non-Christian, or to work out the originality and distinctiveness of the Christian life itself. Now, as in the apostolic age, there are persons who are Christians and persons who are not; and, however alike their lives may be on the surface, they are radically apart. Their centre is different; the element in which they move is different; the nutriment of thought, the fountain of motives, the standard of purity are different; they are related to each other as life in God, and life without God; life in Christ, and life apart from Christ; and in proportion to their sincerity is their mutual antagonism.

In Thessalonica the Christian life was original enough to have formed a new society. In those days, and in the Roman Empire, there was not much room for the social instincts to expand. Unions of all kinds were suspected by the governments, and discouraged, as probable centres of political disaffection. Local self-government ceased to be interesting when all important interests were withdrawn from its control; and even had it been otherwise, there was no part in it possible for that great mass of population from which the Church was so largely recruited, namely, the slaves. Any power that could bring men together, that could touch them deeply, and give them a common interest that engaged their hearts and bound them to each other, met the greatest want of the time, and was sure of a welcome. Such a power was the gospel preached by Paul. It formed little communities of men and women wherever it was proclaimed; communities in which there was no law but that of love, in which heart opened to heart as nowhere else in all the world, in which there was fervour and hope and freedom and brotherly kindness, and all that makes life good and dear. We feel this very strongly in reading the New Testament, and it is one of the points on which, unhappily, we have drifted away from the primitive model. The Christian congregation is not now, in point of fact, the type of a sociable community. Too often it is oppressed with constraint and formality. Take any particular member of any particular congregation; and his social circle, the company of friends in which he expands most freely and happily, will possibly have no connection with those he sits beside in the church. The power of the faith to bring men into real unity with each other is not lessened; we see this wherever the gospel breaks ground in a heathen country, or wherever the frigidity of the church drives two or three fervent souls to form a secret society of their own, but the temperature of faith itself is lowered; we are not really living, with any intensity of life, in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. If we were, we would be drawn closer to each other; our hearts would touch and overflow; the place where we meet in the name of Jesus would be the most radiant and sociable place we know.

Nothing could better illustrate the reality of that new character which Christianity confers than the fact that men can be addressed as Christians. Nothing, either, could better illustrate the confusion of mind that exists in this matter, or the insincerity of much profession, than the fact that so many members of churches would hesitate before taking the liberty so to address a brother. We have all written letters, and on all sorts of occasions; we have addressed men as lawyers, or doctors, or men of business; we have sent or accepted invitations to gatherings where nothing would have astonished us more than the unaffected naming of the name of God; did we ever write to anybody because he was a Christian, and because we were Christians? Of all the relations in which we stand to others, is that which is established by "our common Christianity," by our common life in Jesus Christ, the only one which is so crazy and precarious that it can never be really used for anything? Here we see the Apostle look back from Corinth to Thessalonica, and his one interest in the poor people whom he remembers so affectionately is that they are Christians. The one thing in which he wishes to help them is their Christian life. He does not care much whether they are well or ill off in respect of this world's goods; but he is anxious to supply what is lacking in their faith (iii. 10). How real a thing the Christian life was to him! what a substantial interest, whether in himself or in others, engrossing all his thought, absorbing all his love and devotion. To many of us it is the one topic for silence; to him it was the one theme of thought and speech. He wrote about it, as he spoke about it, as though there were no other interest for man; and letters like those of Thomas Erskine show that still, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. The full soul overflows, unaffected, unforced; Christian fellowship, as soon as Christian life is real, is restored to its true place.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy wish the church of the Thessalonians grace and peace. This is the greeting in all the Apostle's letters; it is not varied except by the addition of "mercy" in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. In form it seems to combine the salutations current among the Greeks and the Jews (χα?ρειν and ???????), but in import it has all the originality of the Christian faith. In the second Epistle it runs, "Grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Grace is the love of God, spontaneous, beautiful, unearned, at work in Jesus Christ for the salvation of sinful men; peace is the effect and fruit in man of the reception of grace. It is easy to narrow unduly the significance of peace; those expositors do so who suppose in this passage a reference to the persecution which the Thessalonian Christians had to bear, and understand the Apostle to wish them deliverance from it. The Apostle has something far more comprehensive in his mind. The peace, which Christ is; the peace with God which we have when we are reconciled to Him by the death of His Son; the soul-health which comes when grace makes our hearts to their very depths right with God, and frightens away care and fear; this "perfect soundness" spiritually is all summed up in the word. It carries in it the fulness of the blessing of Christ. The order of the words is significant; there is no peace without grace; and there is no grace apart from fellowship with God in Christ. The history of the Church has been written by some who practically put Paul in Christ's place; and by others who imagine that the doctrine of the person of Christ only attained by slow degrees, and in the post-apostolic age, its traditional importance; but here, in the oldest extant monument of the Christian faith, and in the very first line of it, the Church is defined as existing in the Lord Jesus Christ; and in that single expression, in which the Son stands side by side with the Father, as the life of all believing souls, we have the final refutation of such perverse thoughts. By the grace of God, incarnate in Jesus Christ, the Christian is what he is; he lives and moves and has his being there; apart from Christ, he is not. Here, then, is our hope. Conscious of our own sins, and of the shortcomings of the Christian community of which we are members, let us have recourse to Him whose grace is sufficient for us. Let us abide in Christ, and in all things grow up into Him. God alone is good; Christ alone is the Pattern and the Inspiration of the Christian character; only in the Father and the Son can the new life and the new fellowship come to their perfection.

FOOTNOTE

[1]The date cannot be precisely assigned, but it is not later than 54 A.D., and cannot be so early as 52. Most scholars say 54. It was written in Corinth.

"We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labour of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father; knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election."-1 Thess. i. 2-4. (R.V.).

THE salutation in St. Paul's epistles is regularly followed by the thanksgiving. Once only, in the Epistle to the Galatians, is it omitted; the amazement and indignation with which the Apostle has heard that his converts are forsaking his gospel for another which is not a gospel at all, carries him out of himself for a moment. But in his earliest letter it stands in its proper place; before he thinks of congratulating, teaching, exhorting, admonishing, he gives God thanks for the tokens of His grace in the Thessalonians. He would not be writing to these people at all if they were not Christians; they would never have been Christians but for the free goodness of God; and before he says one word directly to them, he acknowledges that goodness with a grateful heart.

In this case the thanksgiving is particularly fervent. It has no drawback. There is no profane person at Thessalonica, like him who defiled the church at Corinth at a later period; we give thanks, says the Apostle, for you all. It is, as far as the nature of the case permits, uninterrupted. As often as Paul prays, he makes mention of them and gives thanks; he remembers without ceasing their new-born graces. We ought not to extenuate the force of such words, as if they were mere exaggerations, the idle extravagances of a man who habitually said more than he meant. Paul's life was concentrated and intense, to a degree of which we have probably little conception. He lived for Christ, and for the churches of Christ; it was literal truth, not extravagance, when he said, "This one thing I do": the life of these churches, their interests, their necessities, their dangers, God's goodness to them, his own duty to serve them, all these constituted together the one dear concernment of his life; they were ever with him in God's sight, and therefore in his intercessions and thanksgivings to God. Other men's minds might surge with various interests; new ambitions or affections might displace old ones; fickleness or disappointments might change their whole career; but it was not so with him. His thoughts and affections never changed their object, for the same conditions appealed constantly to the same susceptibility; if he grieved over the unbelief of the Jews, he had unceasing (?δι?λειπτον) pain in his heart; if he gave thanks for the Thessalonians, he remembered without ceasing (?διαλε?πτω?) the graces with which they had been adorned by God.

Nor were these continual thanksgivings vague or formal; the Apostle recalls, in each particular case, the special manifestations of Christian character which inspire his gratitude. Sometimes, as in 1st Corinthians, they are less spiritual-gifts, rather than graces; utterance and knowledge, without charity; sometimes, as here, they are eminently spiritual-faith, love, and hope. The conjunction of these three in the earliest of Paul's letters is worthy of remark. They occur again in the well-known passage in 1 Cor. xiii., where, though they share in the distinction of being eternal, and not, like knowledge and eloquence, transitory in their nature, love is exalted to an eminence above the other two. They occur a third time in one of the later epistles-that to the Colossians-and in the same order as here. That, says Lightfoot on the passage, is the natural order. "Faith rests on the past; love works in the present; hope looks to the future." Whether this distribution of the graces is accurate or not, it suggests the truth that they cover and fill up the whole Christian life. They are the sum and substance of it, whether it looks back, or looks round, or looks forward. The germ of all perfection is implanted in the soul which is the dwelling-place of "these three."

Though none of them can really exist, in its Christian quality, without the others, any of them may preponderate at a given time. It is not quite fanciful to point out that each in its turn seems to have bulked most largely in the experience of the Apostle himself. His earliest epistles-the two to the Thessalonians-are pre-eminently epistles of hope. They look to the future; the doctrinal interest uppermost in them is that of the second coming of the Lord, and the final rest of the Church. The epistles of the next period-Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians-are as distinctly epistles of faith. They deal largely with faith as the power which unites the soul to God in Christ, and brings into it the virtue of the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus. Later still, there are the epistles of which Colossians and Ephesians are the type. The great thought in these is that of the unity wrought by love; Christ is the head of the Church; the Church is the body of Christ; the building up of the body in love, by the mutual help of the members, and their common dependence on the Head, preoccupies the apostolic writer. All this may have been more or less accidental, due to circumstances which had nothing to do with the spiritual life of Paul; but it has the look of being natural too. Hope prevails first-the new world of things unseen and eternal outweighs the old; it is the stage at which religion is least free from the influence of sense and imagination. Then comes the reign of faith; the inward gains upon the outward; the mystical union of the soul to Christ, in which His spiritual life is appropriated, is more or less sufficient to itself; it is the stage, if it be a stage at all, at which religion becomes independent of imagination and sense. Finally, love reigns. The solidarity of all Christian interests is strongly felt; the life flows out again, in all manner of Christian service, on those by whom it is surrounded; the Christian moves and has his being in the body of which he is a member. All this, I repeat, can be only comparatively true; but the character and sequence of the Apostle's writings speak for its truth so far.

But it is not simply faith, love, and hope that are in question here: "we remember," says the Apostle, "your work of faith and labour of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." We call faith, love, and hope the Christian graces; and we are apt to forget that the associations of heathen mythology, thus introduced, are disturbing rather than enlightening. The three Graces of the Greeks are ideally beautiful figures; but their beauty is ?sthetic, not spiritual. They are lovely as a group of statuary is lovely; but though "by (their) gift come unto men all pleasant things and sweet, and the wisdom of a man and his beauty, and the splendour of his fame," their nature is utterly unlike that of the three powers of the Christian character; no one would dream of ascribing to them work, and labour and patience. Yet the mere fact that "Graces" has been used as a common name for both has diffused the idea that the Christian graces also are to be viewed mainly as the adornments of character, its unsought, unstudied beauties, set on it by God to subdue and charm the world. That is quite wrong; the Greek Graces are essentially beauties; they confer on men all that wins admiration-personal comeliness, victory in the games, a happy mood; but the Christian graces are essentially powers; they are new virtues and forces which God has implanted in the soul that it may be able to do His work in the world. The heathen Graces are lovely to look at, and that is all; but the Christian graces are not subjects for ?sthetic contemplation; they are here to work, to toil, to endure. If they have a beauty of their own-and surely they have-it is a beauty not in form or colour, not appealing to the eye or the imagination, but only to the spirit which has seen and loved Christ, and loves His likeness in whatever guise.

Let us look at the Apostle's words more closely: he speaks of a work of faith; to take it exactly, of something which faith has done. Faith is a conviction with regard to things unseen, that makes them present and real. Faith in God as revealed in Christ, and in His death for sin, makes reconciliation real; it gives the believer peace with God. But it is not shut up in the realm of things inward and unseen. If it were, a man might say what he pleased about it, and there would be no check upon his words. Wherever it exists, it works; he who is interested can see what it has done. Apparently the Apostle has some particular work of faith in his mind in this passage; some thing which the Thessalonians had actually done, because they believed but what it is we cannot tell. Certainly not faith itself; certainly not love, as some think, referring to Gal. v. 6; if a conjecture may be hazarded, possibly some act of courage or fidelity under persecution, similar to those adduced in Heb. xi. That famous chapter contains a catalogue of the works which faith wrought; and serves as a commentary, therefore, on this expression. Surely we ought to notice that the great Apostle, whose name has been the strength and shield of all who preach justification by faith alone, the very first time he mentions this grace in his epistles, mentions it as a power which leaves its witness in work.

It is so, also, with love: "we remember," he writes, "your labour of love." The difference between ?ργον (work) and κ?πο? (labour) is that between effect and effort. The Apostle recalls something which the faith of the Thessalonians did; he recalls also the wearisome toil in which their love spent itself. Love is not so capable of abuse in religion, or, at least, it has not been so rankly abused, as faith. Men are much more apt to demand the proof of it. It has an inward side as much as faith, but it is not an emotion which exhausts itself in its own transports. Merely as emotion, indeed, it is apt to be undervalued. In the Church of to-day emotion needs rather to be stimulated than repressed. The passion of the New Testament startles us when we chance to feel it. For one man among us who is using up the powers of his soul in barren ecstasies, there are thousands who have never been moved by Christ's love to a single tear or a single heart throb. They must learn to love before they can labour. They must be kindled by that fire which burned in Christ's heart, and which He came to cast upon the earth, before they can do anything in His service. But if the love of Christ has really met that answer in love for which it waits, the time for service has come. Love in the Christian will attest itself as it attested itself in Christ. It will prescribe and point out the path of labour. The word employed in this passage is one often used by the Apostle to describe his own laborious life. Love set him, and will set every one in whose heart it truly burns, upon incessant, unwearied efforts for others' good. Paul was ready to spend and be spent at its bidding, however small the result might be. He toiled with his hands, he toiled with his brain, he toiled with his ardent, eager, passionate heart, he toiled in his continual intercessions with God, and all these toils made up his labour of love. "A labour of love," in current language, is a piece of work done so willingly that no payment is expected for it. But a labour of love is not what the Apostle is speaking of; it is laboriousness, as love's characteristic. Let Christian men and women ask themselves whether their love can be so characterised. We have all been tired in our time, one may presume; we have toiled in business, or in some ambitious course, or in the perfecting of some accomplishment, or even in the mastery of some game or the pursuit of some amusement, till we were utterly wearied: how many of us have so toiled in love? How many of us have been wearied and worn with some labour to which we set ourselves for God's sake? This is what the Apostle has in view in this passage; and, strange as it may appear, it is one of the things for which he gives God thanks. But is he not right? Is it not a thing to evoke gratitude and joy, that God counts us worthy to be fellow-labourers with Him in the manifold works which love imposes?

The church at Thessalonica was not old; its first members could only count their Christian age by months. Yet love is so native to the Christian life, that they found at once a career for it; demands were made upon their sympathy and their strength which were met at once, though never suspected before. "What are we to do," we sometimes ask, "if we would work the works of God?" If we have love enough in our hearts, it will answer all its own questions. It is the fulfilling of the law just because it shows us plainly where service is needed, and puts us upon rendering it at any cost of pain or toil. It is not too much to say that the very word chosen by the Apostle to characterise love-this word κ?πο?-is peculiarly appropriate, because it brings out, not the issue, but only the cost, of work. With the result desired, or without it; with faint hope, or with hope most sure, love labours, toils, spends and is spent over its task: this is the very seal of its genuine Christian character.

The third grace remains: "your patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." The second coming of Christ was an element in apostolic teaching which, whether exceptionally prominent or not, had made an exceptional impression at Thessalonica. It will more naturally be studied at another place; here it is sufficient to say that it was the great object of Christian hope. Christians not only believed Christ would come again; they not only expected Him to come; they were eager for His coming. "How long, O Lord?" they cried in their distress. "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly," was their prayer.

It is matter of notoriety that hope in this sense does not hold its ancient place in the heart of the Church. It holds a much lower place. Christian men hope for this or that; they hope that threatening symptoms in the Church or in society may pass away, and better things appear; they hope that when the worst comes to the worst, it will not be so bad as the pessimists anticipate. Such impotent and ineffective hope is of no kindred to the hope of the gospel. So far from being a power of God in the soul, a victorious grace, it is a sure token that God is absent. Instead of inspiring, it discourages; it leads to numberless self-deceptions; men hope their lives are right with God, when they ought to search them and see; they hope things will turn out well, when they ought to be taking security of them. All this, where our relations to God are concerned, is a degradation of the very word. The Christian hope is laid up in heaven. The object of it is the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not precarious, but certain; it is not ineffective, but a great and energetic power. Anything else is not hope at all.

The operation of the true hope is manifold. It is a sanctifying grace, as appears from 1 John iii. 3: "Every one that hath this hope set on Him, purifieth himself, even as He is pure." But here the Apostle characterises it by its patience. The two virtues are so inseparable that Paul sometimes uses them as equivalent; twice in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, he says faith, love, and patience, instead of faith, love, and hope. But what is patience? The word is one of the great words of the New Testament. The corresponding verb is usually rendered endurance, as in Christ's saying, "He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved." Patience is more than resignation or meek submission; it is hope in the shade, but hope nevertheless; the brave steadfastness which bears up under all burdens because the Lord is at hand. The Thessalonians had much affliction in their early days as Christians; they were tried, too, as we all are, by inward discouragements-that persistence and vitality of sin that break the spirit and beget despair; but they saw close at hand the glory of the Lord; and in the patience of hope they held out, and fought the good fight to the last. It is truly significant that in the Pastoral Epistles patience has taken the place of hope in the trinity of graces. It is as if Paul had discovered, by prolonged experience, that it was in the form of patience that hope was to be mainly effective in the Christian life. The Thessalonians, some of them, were abusing the great hope; it was working mischief in their lives, because it was misapplied; in this single word Paul hints at the truth which abundant experience had taught him, that all the energy of hope must be transformed into brave patience if we would stand in our place at the last. Remembering their work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope, in the presence of our God and Father, the Apostle gives thanks to God always for them all. Happy is the man whose joys are such that he can gratefully dwell on them in that presence: happy are those also who give others cause to thank God on their behalf.

The ground of the thanksgiving is finally comprehended in one short and striking phrase: "Knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election." The doctrine of election has often been taught as if the one thing that could never be known about anybody was whether he was or was not elect. The assumed impossibility does not square with New Testament ways of speaking. Paul knew the elect, he says here; at least he knew the Thessalonians were elect. In the same way he writes to the Ephesians: "God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world; ... in love He foreordained us to adoption as sons." Chose whom before the foundation of the world? Foreordained whom? Himself, and those whom he addressed. If the Church has learned the doctrine of election from anybody, it has been from Paul; but to him it had a basis in experience, and apparently he felt differently about it from many theologians. He knew when the people he spoke to were elect; how, he tells in what follows.

We talk a great deal about gentlemen and about democracy and a good many other words which describe noble conceptions without a very clear idea of what they mean. The biggest mistake we make is in thinking of them as something stationary like a monument carved in granite or a stone set upon a hill, when the truth is that they are living ideas subject to the change and growth of all living things.

No man has ever yet become a perfect gentleman because as his mind has developed his conception of what a gentleman is has enlarged, just as no country has ever become a perfect democracy because each new idea of freedom has led to broader ideas of freedom. It is very much like walking through a tunnel. At first there is only darkness, and then a tiny pin point of light ahead which grows wider and wider as one advances toward it until, finally, he stands out in the open with the world before him. There is no end to life, and none to human development, at least none that can be conceived of by the finite mind of man.

There are hundreds of definitions of a gentleman, none of them altogether satisfactory. Cardinal Newman says it is almost enough to say that he is one who never gives pain. "They be the men," runs an old chronicle, "whom their race and bloud, or at the least, their virtues, do make noble and knowne." Barrow declares that they are the men lifted above the vulgar crowd by two qualities: courage and courtesy. The Century Dictionary, which is as good an authority as any, says, "A gentleman is a man of good breeding, courtesy, and kindness; hence, a man distinguished for fine sense of honor, strict regard for his obligations, and consideration for the rights and feelings of others." And this is a good enough working standard for anybody. The Dictionary is careful to make-and this is important-a gentleman not one who conforms to an outward and conventional standard, but one who follows an inward and personal ideal.

Of late days there has been a great deal of attention paid to making gentlemen of business men and putting courtesy into all the ramifications of business. Without doubt the chief reason for it is the fact that business men themselves have discovered that it pays. One restaurant frankly adopted the motto, "Courtesy Pays," and had it all fixed up with gilt letters and framed and hung it near the front door, and a number of other places have exactly the same policy for exactly the same reason though they do not all proclaim the fact so boldly. It is not the loftiest motive in the world but it is an intelligent one, and it is better for a man to be polite because he hopes to win success that way than for him not to be polite at all.

Human conduct, even at its best, is not always inspired by the highest possible motives. Not even the religions which men have followed have been able to accomplish this. Most of them have held out the hope of heavenly reward in payment for goodness here on earth and countless millions of men (and women, too, for that matter) have kept in the straight and narrow path because they were afraid to step out of it. It may be that they were, intrinsically, no better men than the ones who trod the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire, but they were much easier to live with. And the man who is courteous, who is a gentleman, whatever his motives, is a more agreeable citizen than the one who is not.

Now how-this is our problem-does one go about making a gentleman? Environment plays, comparatively speaking, a very small part. "The appellation of gentleman," this is from a gentleman of the Seventeenth Century, "is not to be affixed to a man's circumstances, but to his behavior in them." It is extremely doubtful if courtesy can be taught by rule. It is more a matter of atmosphere, and an instinct "for the better side of things and the cleaner surfaces of life." And yet, heredity, training, and environment all enter into the process.

It is a polite and pleasant fiction that courtesy is innate and not acquired, and we hear a great deal about the "born lady" and the "born gentleman." They are both myths. Babies are not polite, and the "king upon 'is throne with 'is crown upon 'is 'ead" has had, if he is a gentleman, life-long training in the art of being one. There is still in existence a very interesting outline which was given by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to their oldest son, the Prince of Wales, on his seventeenth birthday. It contained a careful summary of what was expected of him as a Christian gentleman and included such items as dress, appearance, deportment, relations with other people, and ability to acquit himself well in whatever company he happened to be thrown.

The King and Queen, although they were probably unaware of the fact, were acting upon the advice of an authority on good manners at court a number of years before their time. "Indeed," says the old manuscript, "from seven to seventeen young gentlemen commonly are carefully enough brought up: but from seventeen to seven-and-twenty (the most dangerous time of all a man's life, and the most slippery to stay well in) they have commonly the rein of all license in their own hand, and specially such as do live in the court." If we bring the sentence up to date, and it is as true now as it was then, we may substitute "business" for "court." Business men as well as courtiers find the ages between seventeen and seven-and-twenty "the most slippery to stay well in" for it is during these years that they are establishing themselves in the commercial world. As a general thing, but it is wise to remember that there is no rule to which there are not exceptions, by the time a man is twenty-seven his habits are formed and it is too late to acquire new ones.

Most children undergo a painstaking and more or less painful course of instruction in good manners and know by the time they are men and women what should be done whether they do it or not. Our social code is not a complicated one, and there is no excuse except for the youngsters who have just growed up like Topsy or have been brought up by jerks like Pip. It is, without doubt, easier to be polite among people who are naturally courteous than among those who snap and snarl at one another, but it is a mistake to place too much emphasis on this part of it. Too many men-business men, at that-have come up out of the mire for us to be able to offer elaborate apologies for those who have stayed in it. The background is of minor importance. A cockroach is a cockroach anywhere you put him.

It is easy to envy the men who have had superior advantages, and many a man feels that if he had another's chance he, too, might have become a great gentleman. It is an idle speculation. His own opportunities are the only ones any man can attend to, and if he is sensible he will take quick advantage of those that come, not in dreams, but in reality, and will remember what a very sagacious English statesman said about matters of even graver import: "It makes no difference where you are going. You've got to start from where you are."

The lack of early training is a handicap but not a formidable one, especially to a business man. As the Spaniards say, there is little curiosity about the pedigree of a good man. And no man needs to be ashamed of his origin. The president of a firm would naturally be interested in the ancestry of a young man who came to ask him for the hand of his daughter, but if the man has come to sell a bill of goods he does not care a snap. In discussions of the social evil it is often said that every child has a right to be well born, but Robert Louis Stevenson saw more deeply and spoke more truly when he said, "We are all nobly born; fortunate those who know it; blessed those who remember."

The finest Gentleman the world has ever seen was born some two thousand years ago to the wife of a carpenter in Bethlehem and spent most of His time among fishermen, tax-collectors, cripples, lepers, and outcasts of various sorts; and yet in the entire record of His short and troubled life there is not one mention of an ungraceful or an ungainly action. He was careful to observe even the trivialities of social life. Mary and Martha were quarreling before dinner. He quieted them with a few gracious words. The people at the marriage feast at Cana were worried because they had only water to drink. He touched it and gave them wine. The multitude who came to hear Him were tired, footsore, and hungry. He asked them to be seated and gave them food. He dined with the Pharisees, He talked with the women of Samaria, He comforted Mary Magdalen, and He washed the feet of His disciples. He was beset and harassed by a thousand rude and unmannerly questions, but not once did He return an impatient answer. Surely these things are godlike and divine whatever one may believe about the relation of Jesus Christ to God, the Father.

It has been said that every man should choose a gentleman for his father. He should also choose a gentleman for his employer. Unfortunately he often has no more option in the one than he has in the other. Very few of us get exactly what we want. But however this may be, a gentleman at the head of a concern is a priceless asset. The atmosphere of most business houses is determined by the man at the top. His character filters down through the ranks. If he is a rough-and-tumble sort of person the office is likely to be that kind of place; if he is quiet and mannerly the chances are that the office will be quiet and mannerly. If he is a gentleman everybody in the place will know it and will feel the effects of it. "I am always glad John was with Mr. Blank his first year in business," said a mother speaking of her son. Mr. Blank was a man who had a life-long reputation for being as straight as a shingle and as clean as a hound's tooth, every inch a gentleman.

"How do you account for the fact that you have come to place so much emphasis on courtesy?" a business man was asked one day as he sat in his upholstered office with great windows opening out on the New York harbor. He thought for a moment, and his mind went back to the little Georgia village where he was born and brought up. "My father was a gentleman," he answered. "I remember when I was a boy he used to be careful about such trifles as this: 'Now, Jim,' he would say, 'when you stop on the sidewalk don't stop in the middle of it. Stand aside so you won't be in anybody's way.' And even now," the man smiled, "I never stop on the sidewalk without stepping to one side so as to be out of the way."

The life of a young person is plastic, easy to take impressions, strong to retain them. And the "old man" or the "governor," whether he is father, friend, or employer, or all three, has infinitely more influence than either he or the young man realizes. At the same time it is perfectly true that young people do not believe what older ones tell them about life. They have to try it out for themselves. One generation does not begin where the other left off. Each one of us begins at the beginning, and the world, with all that it holds, is as wonderful (though slightly different, to be sure) and as new to the child who is born into it to-day as it was to Adam on the first morning after it was created.

It is almost tragic that so many young men take the tenor of their lives from that of their employers, especially if the latter have been successful. This places a terrific responsibility upon the employer which does not, however, shift it from the employee. His part in business or in life-and this is true of all of us-is what he makes it, great or small. And the most important thing is for him to have a personal ideal of what he thinks best and hold to it. He cannot get it from the outside.

"Courtesy is not one of the company's rules," wrote the manager of a large organization which has been very successful in handling men and making money. "It is a tradition, an instinct. It is an attribute of the general tone, of the dominating influence of the management in all its relations. It is a part of the general tone, the honor, the integrity of the company. For three generations it has been looked upon as an inheritance to be preserved and kept irreproachable. Employees are drawn into this influence by the very simple process of their own development. Those who find themselves in harmony with the character of the company or who deliberately put themselves in tune, progress. Those who do not, cannot, for long, do congenial or acceptable service." This is the statement from the manager of a firm that is widely known for courteous dealing. Their standard is now established. It is a part of the atmosphere, and their chief problem is to get men who will fit into it.

An employer does not judge a man on an abstract basis. He takes him because he thinks he will be useful to his business. This is why most places like to get men when they are young. They are easier to train.

Every one likes good material to work with, and employers are no exception. They take the best they can find, and the higher the standard of the firm the greater the care expended in choosing the employees. "Whenever we find a good man," said the manager of a big trust company, "we take him on. We may not have a place for him at the time but we keep him until we find one."

Except during times of stress such as that brought about by the war when the soldiers were at the front, no business house hires people indiscriminately. They know, as the Chinese have it, that rotten wood cannot be carved. "It is our opinion," we quote from another manager, "that courtesy cannot be pounded into a person who lacks proper social basis. In other words, there are some people who would be boorish under any circumstances. Our first and chief step toward courtesy is to exercise care in selecting our employees. We weigh carefully each applicant for a sales position and try to visualize his probable deportment as our representative, and unless he gives promise of being a fit representative we do not employ him."

But it is not enough to take a man into a business organization. Every newcomer must be broken in. Sometimes this is done by means of formal training, sometimes it consists merely of giving him an idea of what is expected of him and letting him work out his own salvation. Granting that he is already familiar with the work in a general way, and that he is intelligent and resourceful, he ought to be able to adapt himself without a great deal of instruction from above. All of this depends upon the kind of work which is to be done.

Nearly every employer exercises more caution in selecting the man who is to meet the public than any other. It is through him that the all-important first impression is made, and a man who is rude or discourteous, or who, for any reason, rubs people the wrong way, simply will not do. He may have many virtues but unless they are apparent they are for the time being of little service.

Most salesmen have to go to school. Their work consists largely of the study of one of the most difficult subjects in the catalogue: human psychology. They must know why men do what they do and how to make them do what they, the salesmen, want them to do. They must be able to handle the most delicate situations courteously and without friction. It takes the tact of a diplomat, the nerve of a trapeze performer, the physical strength of a prize fighter, the optimism of William J. Bryan or of Pollyanna, and the wisdom of Solomon. Not many men are born with this combination of qualities.

The best training schools base their teaching on character and common sense. One very remarkable organization, which has at its head an astonishingly buoyant and optimistic-and, it is hardly necessary to add, successful-man, teaches that character is nine-tenths of success in salesmanship and technique is only one-tenth. They study technique and character along with it, in a scientific way, like the students in a biological laboratory who examine specimens. Their prospects are their subjects, and while they do not actually bring them into the consultation room, they hold experience meetings and tell the stories of their successful and unsuccessful contacts. The meetings are held at the end of the day, when the men are all tired and many of them are depressed and discouraged. They are opened with songs, "My Old Kentucky Home," "Old Black Joe," "Sweet Adeline," and the other good old familiar favorites that make one think of home and mother and school days and happiness. One or two catchy popular songs are introduced, and the men sing or hum or whistle or divide into groups and do all three with all their might. It is irresistible. Fifteen or twenty minutes of it can wipe out the sourest memory of the day's business, and trivial irritations sink to their proper place in the scheme of things. The little speeches follow, and the men clap and cheer for the ones who have done good work and try to make an intelligent diagnosis of the cases of the ones who have not. When the leader talks he sometimes recounts his early experiences-he, like most good salesmanagers, was once on the road himself-and if he is in an inspirational mood, gives a sound talk on the principle back of the golden rule. The spirit of co?peration throughout the institution is amazing and the morale is something any group of workers might well envy them.

Most business houses recognize their responsibilities toward the young people that they hire. Well-organized concerns build up from within. The heads of the departments are for the most part men who have received their training in the institution, and they take as much pains in selecting their office boys as they do in selecting any other group, for it is in them that they see the future heads and assistant heads of the departments. In hiring office boys "cleanness, good manners, good physique, mental agility, and good habits are primary requisites," according to Mr. J. Ogden Armour in the American Magazine.

In one of the oldest banks in New York each boy who enters is given a few days' intensive training by a gentleman chosen for the purpose. The instructor stresses the fundamentals of character and, above all things, common sense. Courtesy is rarely discussed as a separate quality but simple instructions are given about not going in front of a person when there is room to go around him, not pushing into an elevator ahead of every one else, not speaking to a man at a desk until he has signified that he is ready, and about sustaining quiet and orderly behavior everywhere. The atmosphere in the bank is the kind that encourages gentlemanly conduct and the new boys either fall in with it or else get out and go somewhere else.

It takes more patience on the part of the youngsters in the financial district than it does in most other places, for the men there work under high tension and are often cross, worried, nervous, and irritable, and as a result are, many times, without intending it, unjust. The discipline is severe, and the boy would not be human if he did not resent it. But the youngster who is quick to fly off the handle will find himself sadly handicapped, however brilliant he may be, in the race with boys who can keep their tempers in the face of an injury.

Three boys out of the hundreds who have passed through the training school in the bank of which we were speaking have been discharged for acts of discourtesy. One flipped a rubber clip across a platform and hit one of the officials in the eye, one refused to stay after hours to finish some work he had neglected during the day, and one was impertinent. All three could have stayed if each had used a little common sense, and all three could have stayed if each act had not been a fair indication of his general attitude toward his work.

One of the most difficult organizations to manage and one against which the charge of discourtesy is frequently brought is the department store. Yet a distinguished Englishwoman visiting here-it takes a woman to judge these things-said, "I had always been told that people in New York were in such a hurry that, although well-meaning enough, they were inclined to appear somewhat rude to strangers. I have found it to be just the reverse. During my first strolls in the streets, in the shops, and elsewhere, I have found everybody most courteous. Your stores, I may say, are the finest I have ever seen, not excepting those of Paris. Their displays are remarkable. Their spaciousness impressed me greatly. Even at a crowded time it was not difficult to move about. In London, where our shops are mostly cramped and old-fashioned, it would be impossible for such large numbers of people to find admittance."

The tribute is a very nice one. For a long time the department stores have realized the difficulties under which they labor and have been making efforts to overcome them. They have formed associations by which they study each other's methods, and most of them have very highly organized systems of training and management. One big department store carries on courtesy drives. Talks are given, posters are exhibited, and prizes are offered for the most courteous clerks in the store. "We know that it is not fair to give prizes," the personnel manager says, "because it is impossible to tell really which clerks are the most courteous, but it stimulates interest and effort throughout the organization and the effects last after the drive is over."

One big department store which is favorably known among a large clientèle for courteous handling of customers depends upon its atmosphere to an enormous extent, but it realizes that atmosphere does not come by chance, that it has to be created. They have arranged it so that each clerk has time to serve each customer who enters without the nervous hurry which is the cause of so much rudeness. The salesclerks who come into the institution are given two weeks' training in the mechanical end of their work, the ways of recording sales, methods of approach, and so on, as well as in the spirit of co?peration and service. By the time the clerk is placed behind the counter he or she can conduct a sale courteously and with despatch, but there is never a time when the head of the department is not ready and willing to be consulted about extraordinary situations which may arise.

It is during the rush seasons such as the three or four weeks which precede Christmas that courtesy is put to the severest test, and the store described in the paragraph above bears up under it nobly. It did not wait until Christmas to begin teaching courtesy. It had tried to make it a habit, but last year several weeks before the holidays it issued a bulletin to its employees to remind them of certain things that would make the Christmas shopping less nerve-racking. The first paragraph was headed HEALTH. It ran as follows:

"If you want to be really merry at Christmas time, it will be well to bear in mind during this busy month at least these few 'health savers':

"Every night try to get eight good hours of sleep.

"All day try to keep an even temper and a ready smile.

"Remember that five minutes lost in the morning means additional pressure all day long.

"Try to make your extra effort a steady one-not allowing yourself to get excited and rushed so that you make careless mistakes.

"Try to eat regularly three good nourishing meals, relaxing completely while you are at the table and for a little while afterward.

"Breathe deeply, and as often as you can, good fresh air-it cures weariness.

"And don't forget that a brisk walk, a sensible dinner, an hour's relaxation, and then a hot bath before retiring, make a refreshing end for one business day and a splendid preparation for the next."

There were six other paragraphs in the bulletin. One asked the salesclerks to take the greatest care in complying with a customer's request to send gift purchases without the price tags. Another asked them to pay strictest attention to getting the right addresses, and most of the others were taken up with suggestions for ways to avoid congestion by using a bank of elevators somewhat less conveniently located than the others, by limiting their personal telephone calls to those which were absolutely necessary, and so on. In both tone and content the bulletin was an excellent one. It first considered the employees and then the customers. There was no condescension in the way it was written and there was no "bunk" about what was in it. But the bulletin was only a small part of an effort that never stops.

The purpose of the store is, to quote from its own statement, "to render honest, prompt, courteous and complete service to customers" and the qualities by which they measure their employees are as follows:

Health Accuracy

Loyalty Thoroughness

Co?peration

Initiative Responsibility

Industry Knowledge

Courtesy is not included in the list but it is unnecessary. If these qualities are developed courtesy will come of its own accord. It is worth noting that health comes first in the list. To a business man, or indeed to any other, it is one of the most precious possessions in the world, and is the best of backgrounds upon which to embroider the flower of courtesy.

Every employer who has had any experience knows the value of a contented workman, and does what he can to make and keep him so by paying him adequate wages, and providing comfortable, sanitary, and pleasant working conditions. Contentment is, however, more an attitude of mind than a result of external circumstances. Happiness is who, not where, you are. We do not mean by this that a workman should be wholly satisfied and without ambition or that he should face the world with a permanent grin, but that he should to the best of his ability follow that wonderful motto of Roosevelt's, "Do what you can where you are with what you have." No man can control circumstances; not even the braggart Napoleon, who declared that he made circumstances, could control them to the end; and no man can shape them to suit exactly his own purposes, but every man can meet them bravely as a gentleman should.

Most big business concerns supply rest rooms, eating places, recreation camps, and all manner of comforts for their employees, and most of them maintain welfare departments. No business house under heaven could take the place of a home, but where the home influence is bad the best counterfoil is a wholesome atmosphere in which to work. Recently an institution advertising for help, instead of asking what the applicant could do for it, pictured and described what it could do for the applicant. The result was that they got a high-class group of people to make their selection from, and their attitude was one which invited the newcomers to do their best.

Factory owners are paying a good deal of attention to the appearance of their buildings. Many of them have moved out into the country so as to provide more healthful surroundings for work. Numbers of modern factory buildings are very beautiful to look at, trim white buildings set in close-cut lawns with tennis courts and swimming pools not far away, red brick buildings covered with ivy, sand-colored ones with roses climbing over them, and others like the one famous for its thousand windows, rather more comfortable than lovely. In our big cities there are office buildings that look like cathedrals, railroad stations that look like temples, and traffic bridges that look (from a distance) like fairy arches leading into the land of dreams. They are not all like this. We wish they were. But it is to the credit of the American business man that he has put at least a part of his life and work into the building of beautiful things. The influence which comes from them is, like nearly all potent influences, an unconscious one, but it makes for happiness and contentment.

The problem of keeping the employees contented is somewhat different in every place. House organs, picnics, dances, recreation parks, sanitariums in the country and so on can be utilized by "big business," but the spirit which animates them is the same as that which makes the grocery man at Hicksville Centre give his delivery boy an afternoon off when the baseball team comes to town. The spirit of courtesy is everywhere the same, but it must be kept in mind that the end of business is production, production takes work, and that play is introduced in order that the work may be better. This is true whether we are looking at the matter from the point of view of the employer or of the employee. What is to the interest of one-this is gaining slow but sure recognition-is to the interest of the other.

Certain kinds of mechanical work are very trying because of their monotony. The work must be done, however, and in well-ordered places it is arranged so that the worker has brief periods of rest at regular intervals or so that he is shifted from one kind of activity to another. It is poor economy to wear out men. In the old days before the power of steam or electricity had been discovered, boats were propelled by slaves who were kept below decks chained to their seats, and watched by an overseer who forced them to continue rowing long after they had reached the point of exhaustion. The galley slave sat always on the same side of the boat and after a few years his body became so twisted and warped that he was no good for anything else, and pretty soon was not even good for that. Then he was thrown into the discard-most of them died before they got this far along-and the owner of the boat had to look out for more men. Something like this happens to the soul of a man who is bound to dreary, monotonous work without relief or any outlet for growth. It is deadening to him, to his work, and to his employer. The far-sighted employer knows it. The masters of slaves learned it many years ago. The chain which binds the servant to the master binds the master to the servant. And the fastening is as secure at one end as it is at the other.

Too strict supervision-slave-driving-is fatal to courtesy. The places which have intricate spy systems to watch their employees are the ones where there is most rudeness and trickery. The clerk who is hectored, nagged, spied upon, suspected and scolded by some hireling brought in for that purpose or by the head of the firm himself cannot be expected to give "a smile with every purchase and a thank you for every goodbye." The training of employees never stops, but it is something that should be placed very largely in their own hands. After a certain point supervision should be unnecessary.

Most places hate to discharge a man. Labor turnover is too expensive. Most of them try to place their men in the positions for which they are best suited. It is easier to take a round peg out of a square hole and put it into a round one than it is to send out for another assortment of pegs. Men are transferred from sales departments to accounting departments, are taken off the road and brought into the home office, and are shifted about in various ways until they fit. If a man shows that "he has it in him" he is given every chance to succeed. "There is only one thing we drop a man for right off," says an employment manager in a place which has in its service several thousand people of both sexes, "and that is for saying something out of the way to one of our girls."

This same manager tells the story of a boy he hired and put into a department which had been so badly managed that there were a number of loose ends to be tied up. The boy threw himself into his work, cleared up things, and found himself in a "soft snap" without a great deal to do. He happened not to be the kind of person who can be satisfied with a soft snap, and he became so restive and unhappy that he was recommended for discharge. This brought him back to the head of the employment bureau. He, instead of throwing the young man out, asked that he be given a second trial in a department where the loose ends could not be cleaned up. It was a place where there was always plenty of work to do, and the young man has been happy and has been doing satisfactory work ever since.

The house in which this happened is always generous toward the mistakes of its employees if the mistakes do not occur too persistently and too frequently. In one instance a boy made three successive errors in figures in as many days. He was slated for discharge but sent first before the employment manager. As they talked the latter noticed that the boy leaned forward with a strained expression on his face. Thinking perhaps he was slightly deaf, he lowered his voice, but the boy understood every word he said. Then he noticed that there was a tiny red ridge across his nose as if he were accustomed to wearing glasses, although he did not have them on, and when he asked about it he discovered that the boy had broken his glasses a few days before, and that he had not had them fixed because he did not have money enough.

"Why didn't you tell us about it?" the employment manager asked.

"It was not your fault that I broke them," the boy replied. "It was up to me," an independent answer which in itself indicates how much worth while it was to keep him.

The manager gave him money enough to have the glasses mended, the next day the boy was back at work, and there was no more trouble.

An employee in the same organization unintentionally did something which hurt the president of the firm a great deal. But when he went to him and apologized (it takes a man to admit that he is wrong and apologize for it) the president sent him back to his desk, "It's all right, boy," he said, "I know you care. That's enough."

In a big department store in New England there was a girl a few years back with an alert mind, an assertive personality, and a tremendous fund of energy. She was in the habit of giving constructive suggestions to the heads of the departments in which she worked, and because of her youth and manner, they resented it. "I took her into my office," the manager said. "I'm the only one she can be impertinent to there and I don't mind it. It is a bad manifestation of a good quality, and in time the disagreeable part of it will wear off. She will make an excellent business woman."

"If a man finds fault with a boy without explaining the cause to him," we are quoting here from an executive in a highly successful Middle Western firm, "I won't fire the boy, I fire the man. We have not a square inch of space in this organization for the man who criticizes a subordinate without telling him how to do better." Unless the plan of management is big enough to include every one from the oldest saint to the youngest sinner it is no good. Business built on oppression and cut-throat competition, whether the competition is between employer and employee or between rival firms, is war, and war, industrial or political, is still what General Sherman called it some years ago.

We hold no brief for paternalism. We have no patience with it. All that we want is a spirit of fairness and co?peration which will give every man a chance to make good on his own account. This spirit inevitably flowers into courtesy. In every place courtesy should be, of course, so thoroughly a part of the surroundings that it is accepted like air or sunshine without comment. But it is not, and never has been except in old civilizations where manners have ripened and mellowed under the beneficent influence of time. Our traditions here-speaking of the country as a whole-are still in the making, but we have at least got far enough along to realize that it is not only worth while to do things that are good, but, as an old author has it, to do them with a good grace. It cannot be accomplished overnight. Courtesy is not like a fungous growth springing up in a few hours in the decayed parts of a tree; it is like that within the tree itself which gives lustre to the leaves and a beautiful surface to the whole. It takes time to develop it-time and patience-but it is worth waiting for.

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