Fundamentals of Prosperity: What They Are and Whence They ComeBabson, Roger Ward
Philosophy
Fundamentals of Prosperity: What They Are and Whence They Come
Babson, Roger Ward
Business; Success
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.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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