While the selfish saying, "Honesty is the best policy," ought never to be countenanced as the utterance of a really honest man, it is nevertheless true that the Saviour's rule, "All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them," (Matthew 7:12) expresses the only principle on which any business can be successfully carried on in the long run.
The following story from the Youth's Companion illustrates this, and shows also that a reputation for honest work and fair dealing is the best advertisement that any man can have. The man, however, who would have his work praise and recommend him, must do good works from the love of it, without thought of the reward; for "policy" always overreaches itself. "You have a peculiar fire insurance agent in this town, remarked a newcomer one day to an old resident. I had about made up my mind to change my insurance from the L. M. Mutual Company to some other concern; I had a suspicion that it might not be absolutely sound. So, having seen the advertisement of a number of companies on the window of a Mr. Patlin, your agent, I went in there. He seemed to represent almost all the important companies about here except the one I thought of pulling out of. It seemed strange, but he advised me strongly to let the insurance stay where it was, even persuading me that the L. M. Mutual was perfectly sound. He said he could do no better by me, and perhaps not so well. So of course he lost so much business. Well, said the old man, I'm not only not surprised, but I should not have known what to make of it if you had had any other experience with Mr. Patlin. He always advises everybody else to do what he himself would do in the same circumstances. It never makes the least difference to him whether what he says is going to increase or decrease his own business. That is the way with all that family; his brothers are just so, in other lines of trade. But how do they get along? the young man queried. Does this agent make a success by letting business go by that is all ready to drop into his lap? No businessman in town has more to show as the result of his methods, replied the other; and yet I suppose some of the self-proclaimed 'hustlers' would think Mr. Patlin a little slow. What they lose sight of is the long haul. He has been here a good while; he intends to be here a good while longer. People, for some reason, get back to his office, even if he does drive them off occasionally."
The young man didn't carry the argument any further, but he went away with something new to think about.--Present Truth, May 22, 1902--Timeline: IV-15 (Sermon on the Mount)--Matthew 7:12.