Fundamentals of Prosperity | Page 3

the reason for all study and
investigation. Without integrity as a basis, our entire educational
system would fall to the ground; all newspapers and magazines would
become sources of great danger and the publication of books would
have to be suppressed. Our whole civilization rests upon the
assumption that people are honest. With this confidence shaken, the
structure falls. And it should fall, for, unless the truth be taught, the
nation would be much better off without its schools, newspapers, books
and professions. Better have no gun at all, than one aimed at yourself.
The corner-stone of prosperity is the stone of Integrity.

II
FAITH THE SEARCHLIGHT OF BUSINESS
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