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Fundamentals of Prosperity

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<h2 class="chapter_title">II Faith the Searchlight of Business</h2> This religion which we talk about for an hour a week, on Sunday, is not only the vital force which protects our community, but it is the vital force which makes our communities. The power of our spiritual forces has not yet been tapped. About three years ago I was travelling in South America. When going from Sao Paulo up across the tablelands to Rio Janeiro, I passed through a little poverty-stricken Indian village. It was some 3,000 feet above sea level; but it was located at the foot of a great water-power. This water-power, I was told, could easily develop from 10,000 to 15,000 horse-power for twelve months of the year. At the base of this waterfall lived these poverty-stricken Indians, plowing their ground with broken sticks, bringing their corn two hundred miles on their backs from the seacoast, and grinding it by hand between two stones. Yet,—with a little faith and vision, they could have developed that water-power, even though in a most primitive manner, and with irrigation, could have made that poverty-stricken valley a veritable Garden of Eden. They simply lacked faith. They lacked vision. They were unwilling, or unable, to look ahead to do something for the next generation and trust to the Lord for the results. I met the head man of the village and said to him: “Why is it that you don’t do something to develop this power?” “Why, if we started to develop this thing,” he answered, “by the time we got it done, we would be dead.” Indians had lived there for the last two hundred years lacking the vision. No one in that community had the foresight or vision to think or see beyond the end of his day. It was lack of faith which stood between them and prosperity. Hence, the second great fundamental of prosperity is that intangible “something,”—known as faith, vision, hope, whatever you may call it. The writer of the Book of Proverbs says: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Statistics teach that where there is no vision, civilization never gets started! The tangible things which we prize so highly,—buildings, railroads, steamships, factories, power plants, telephones, aeroplanes, etc., are but the result of faith and vision. These things are only symptoms of conditions, mere barometers which register the faith and vision of mankind. This religion which we talk about for an hour a week, on Sunday, is not only the vital force which protects our community, but it is the vital force which makes our communities. The power of our spiritual forces has not yet been tapped! Our grandchildren will look back upon us and wonder why we neglected our trust and our opportunity, just as we look back on those poor Indians in Brazil who plowed with crooked sticks, grinding their corn between stones and hauling it on their backs two hundred miles from the seaboard. ****** These statements are not the result of any special interest as a churchman. I am not a preacher. I am simply a business man, and my work is almost wholly for bankers, brokers, manufacturers, merchants and investors. The concern with which I am associated has one hundred and eighty people in a suburb of Boston who are collecting, compiling and distributing statistics on business conditions. We have only one source of income, and that is from the clients who pay us for an analysis of the situation. Therefore you may rest assured that it is impossible for us to do any propaganda work in the interests of any one nation, sect, religion or church. The only thing we can give clients is a conclusion based on a diagnosis of a given situation. As probably few of you readers are clients of ours, may I quote from a Bulletin which we recently sent to these bankers and manufacturers? “The need of the hour is not more legislation. The need of the hour is more religion. More religion is needed everywhere, from the halls of Congress at Washington, to the factories, the mines, the fields and the forests. It is one thing to talk about plans or policies, but a plan or policy without a religious motive is like a watch without a spring or a body without the breath of life. The trouble, to-day, is that we are trying to hatch chickens from sterile eggs. We may have the finest incubator in the world and operate it according to the most improved regulations—moreover, the eggs may appear perfect specimens—but unless they have the germ of life in them all our efforts are of no avail.” I have referred to the fact that the security of our investments is absolutely dependent upon the faith, the righteousness and the religion of other people. I have stated that the real strength of our investments is due, not to the distinguished bankers of America, but rather to the poor preachers. I now go farther than that and say that the development of the country as a whole is due to this something, this indescribable something, this combination of faith, thrift, industry, initiative, integrity and vision, which these preachers have developed in their communities. Faith and vision do not come from the wealth of a nation. It’s the faith and vision which produce the wealth. The wealth of a country does not depend on its raw materials. Raw materials are to a certain extent essential and to a great extent valuable; but the nations which to-day are richest in raw materials are the poorest in wealth. Even when considering one country—the United States—the principle holds true. The coal and iron and copper have been here in this country for thousands of years, but only within the last fifty years have they been used. Water-powers exist even to-day absolutely unharnessed. Look the whole world over and there has been no increase in raw materials. There existed one thousand years ago more raw materials than we have to-day, but we then lacked men with a vision and the faith to take that coal out of the ground, to harness the water-powers, to build the railroads and to do other things worth while. So I say, the second great fundamental of prosperity is Faith. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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