Christianity projects into the world new ideals of Trade, of Gain, of Competition, Value, and Return for Toil.

What is Trade?  Is it merely a way of making money?  Then there is no ethical basis for it.  “The amount of money which is needed for a good life,” says Aristotle, “is not unlimited.”

One concept is:  Trade is something which belongs to me.  It is that part of the world’s exchange which I can get under my personal control.  It is the balance between human industries and human needs which I hold for my part of the world, and which others are continually trying to wrest from me, and which I must keep by all means, fair or foul.  Competition is the battle of the strongest, the quickest, the meanest!  I must know tricks.  I must get in with people, get hold of some sort of pull, learn to dissemble, to flatter, manipulate, hedge, dodge.  Success is a matter of being sly.  Anything is allowable which comes out ahead, which adds to the dollar-pile, or which makes the loudest advertising noise!

To buy at the least, and sell at the most, regardless of the conditions under which least and most are attained—­the man who enters life with this idea of trade in his mind might just as well be born a shark and live to prey.  Every free dollar in the world will tease and fret him, until he sees it on its way to his own pocket.  If this is all there is in trade, the noble-minded will let it alone:  it gives no human outlook.  It not only undermines personal character, it is the root of national ignominy and dishonor.

What has Christianity to do with this shark-instinct? with the rapacity which looks on the world as a vast grabbing-ground, and upon all natural resources as mere commercial prey?  The value of Christianity lies in its reasonable and intellectual appeal.  It does not spring upon one like a highwayman and say, Hands up!  Give me your purse!  It says gently, Son, give me thy heart.  It then proceeds to refashion that heart, to fill it with new principles and with world-dreams.

Trade is a just exchange of what one man has for what another man needs.  It may take place individually between man and man, in which transaction a horse, an ox, or a tool may change hands.  Or one man may assume a responsibility for a number of people, and say:  I will give this whole town shoes, in return for which you may give me a house, market-produce, clothing, and an education for my children.  The thing will come out even, if you and I are honest.  Or a climate, a civilization, may give to another that which the other lacks.  We send school-books and machinery to China; she sends us tea, matting, and bamboo.  The whole right theory of trade is a give-and-take between men and nations, based on a just price, and with a deep law of Value, not yet wholly formulated, underlying each transaction.

Bargains should not be one-sided.  Trade, in a large sense, is a way of exchange in which each party to the trade receives an advantage.  Not only this, it is a process of distribution, by which each one receives the greatest possible advantage.  Money-making is a secondary result:  in true trade it is not the final benefit.