Part 34

It must teach us how to be and how to get good out of our to-day on earth. If we are good and do good here, we certainly need have no fear for our future prospects.

Day by day we are progressing from narrowness, bigotry, selfishness and envy, to broadness, reason, brotherly love and contentment, and we shall progress from the narrow confines of obstinate orthodoxy or bulldogmatics, by breaking down sect and cult barriers until we are joined together in a universal church in which all can put their hearts and beliefs--in which all can find full range for their spiritual belief and expression. That big, broad, right church will be in harmony with God's purpose.

The Creator made all men, and He doesn't confine His love or His interest to any one little man-made, narrow sect or creed.

"God is love." "Love thy neighbor." "Help the weak; cheer the grief stricken." Those are the commands and purposes we find everywhere in the Scriptures.

"He that believeth in me shall be saved." That's a definite promise, and it is not qualified by a lot of creed paragraphs and beliefs. That promise doesn't have any "buts" or "ifs." It doesn't say we shall be saved if we be Methodists or Catholics, Baptists or Presbyterians. Those names are man-made, and the creeds of those churches are man-made, too.

At the congress of religions in the World's Fair at Chicago, over three hundred religions and sects were represented by delegates from all over the world, and every one of these delegates, with hearty accord, sang, "Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow" and "Rock of Ages." Those hymns were universal; they fitted all creeds and sects.

Big men in the church are intensely interested in the get-together universal church, and each year will mark a definite progress toward amalgamation of sects and divisions.

There should be no Methodist Church North and Methodist Church South.

There should not be churches like the Congregational and Presbyterian, whose creeds are identical, the difference being only in the officers.

The country village of 1,000 population has five churches; it should have only one. The country is full of half-starved preachers and weak, struggling congregations.

The get-together movement will help religion, and it's going to happen surely.

45.

Every year the business man goes over his stock, tools, fixtures, and accounts, and prepares a statement of assets and liabilities so as to get a fairly accurate understanding of his profit and loss.

If he didn't take this inventory, his net worth would be a matter of guess work.

This inventory, which deals with money, materials, etc., and things which are mixed more or less with the human element, is affected by conditions of trade, crops, competition, supply and demand.

The business man takes all these conditions into consideration in preparing for the coming year. He red flags the mistakes and green flags the good plans.

The business man should carry the inventory further. Every month or so he should take a careful inventory of himself, putting down his assets of health, initiative, patience, ability to work, smiles, honesty, sincerity, and the like. So also he should put down on the debit side in the list of liabilities the pull-backs, hindrances and other business-killers. These items are untruth, unfairness, sharp practice, grouchiness, impatience, worry, ill-health, gloom, meanness, broken word, unfilled promises and the like.

In making up the inventory, pay particular attention to your habits: smoking, drinking, over-eating, useless display, useless social functions, and other useless things that pull on your nerves and your pocket book.

Then check up department A, which is your family. How have you dealt with your family and children?

Department B is friends. How do you stand in your treatment of them?

Department C includes all other persons. Did you lie to, steal from, cheat or defraud any one? How much cash profit did you make? How much less a man did the act make you?

Go over your self-respect account. Does it show profit or loss?

Check up your employees' account. What has your stewardship shown? Have you drawn the employees closer, or have you driven them further from you?

Analyze your spiritual account. Is your religious belief a sham or a conviction? Do you sing on Sunday, "We shall know each other there," or do you make it a point to know and love your brother here, seven days a week?

Be fair in your inventory. Write down the facts in the two columns designated "good" and "bad," then go over the list and put a red danger flag on the bad. Keep the list until next inventory and see whether you have made a gain or loss in your net moral standing.

Don't read this and say, "A good idea." Do the thing literally.

Take a clean sheet of paper and write your personal assets and liabilities down in the two columns marked "good" and "bad."

If this inventory doesn't help, then you may call me a false prophet.