We men who have been, and still are, in business have to realise that money is not wealth, that a nation may have great banks with huge stores of gold, may have within its ranks men and women who own great possessions of material things, but may have also multitudes of those who have nowhere to lay their heads. A nation in such a plight is not rich, but very poor, for it has not learnt the simple lesson that the true law of life is to give, and that gold is not God. Going about London, I often notice the manner in which gold is splashed about in order to impress us with its value. Our grand cathedral church has its cross of gold and its towers gilded with the same metal; the new Courts of Justice at the Old Bailey are crowned by a figure of gold, as if the one object of adoration and power in the City of London were gold. Business men must change all this if our nation is to live. Their clever, ingenious brains must be used to amass happiness for all, not gold for themselves and misery for their neighbours. It is a mistake to envy the business man. Stand, as I have done, and see them rolling through the City in their motor-cars, driving in one long line to business every morning, and notice the tense look of anxiety and worry stamped on most of their faces; and, if you are fortunate enough to know them, see, as the days pass, the hard sort of expression which comes over their faces, like a mask, crushing out all the most beautiful expressions of which the human face is capable. And, having done this, ask yourself if, after all, the business man’s life is so desirable and the worship of gold so profitable an occupation! No; instead of envying them, we all should look on them with pity, pity because they are doomed to appear as wealthy and yet are amongst the poorest of all God’s creatures; because so often their whole lives are one long fight against their fellow-men--a fight which leaves them friendless and lonely in the world of men and women. CHAPTER IV CHURCHES Religion plays but a small and insignificant part in the life of any commercial nation. I have travelled all round the world, have seen life under the Southern Cross in Australia, in the United States of America, in Canada, and on the Continent of Europe, and what strikes me more than anything else is the complete divorce between organised religion and the people. The people are not, and never have been, actively hostile to religion, but the organisations for the spread of religion have failed, and are still failing, to get any sort of hold on the common people, who do not oppose nor accept religion, but remain completely indifferent. The reason for this is that religion, like everything else in the world to-day, is looked upon by most of us as a matter of business.