Money To Do Good With

The fact that so many successful men are the sons of ministers is very interesting to the statistician. This is especially significant when one considers that there are fewer ministers than any other class of workers. There are many reasons why ministers' sons turn out so well. Probably the primary reason is that such boys inherit certain visionary qualities from the father and certain qualities of thrift and industry from the mother. Furthermore, such boys are brought up in a religious atmosphere which develops these and other fundamentals of success.

There, however, is a secondary reason for the success of ministers' sons which is quite important. Although they have been brought up in straightened circumstances, yet tastes have been created within them for the finer things of life. They have associated with the best children of the community. Many of the boys with whom the minister's son plays go away to school or college, most of them having more than he has. He also usually goes to college. He visits his classmates at vacation time and sees them living in luxury, with servants to help in satisfying every want. At the end of his visit, the boy goes back to the little parsonage in which he was brought up and sees his mother struggling, making her own clothes, patching his and his father's trousers, working in every possible way to make both ends meet. Then and there he determines to go out into the business world and "make money" so that "mother" and his wife and his children will not have to struggle in a similar way. This is a worthy ambition and a great factor in the accumulation of money.

Many men start out to accumulate wealth with the idea of helping their families, endowing hospitals, sending young people through college, and doing other worthy deeds. These likewise are good aspirations so long as the aspiration is controlled by the individual. When, however, the tables are turned and the man is so absorbed in the accumulating of wealth that he has no time to give to its distribution, then even this worthy object becomes annulled. No amount of money can take the place of a human soul, and this is what Jesus meant when He asked, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

Jesus never criticized the accumulation of money for enduring investments. What Jesus criticized was the accumulation of money for oneself, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth," said Jesus. He did not speak against laying up treasures. Jesus knew that the accumulation of money was essential for the providing of capital to build railroads, erect buildings, clear forests, and open up mines. He knew that as some men are naturally gifted in music, medicine, art, or literature, so other men are naturally gifted to accumulate money and become great bankers, manufacturers, and merchants.

Jesus never said that it is wrong to be a banker, manufacturer, or merchant provided one is in a business for the good of the community and not for oneself alone. "Lay not up for yourselves treasures," Jesus continually said. "Be thrifty and accumulate, but do it in the best interests of your family, your friends, your neighbors, your community, your countrymen, and the entire world, that all may be healthier, happier, and more prosperous," is what He would recommend. By so doing one would make enduring investments which moths and rust would not corrupt and which thieves would not steal.