God Rewards Faithfulness in Mammon

“Colgate”

The Colgate-Palmolive Company is one of the oldest in America, going back nearly two hundred years. It was started by a young man named William Colgate. He left home at sixteen years of age to seek his fortune, and everything that he owned in this world was tied in a bundle that he carried in his hand. But as he walked along on his way to the city, he met an old neighbor, the captain of a canal boat, and the words the old man spoke to him on that day stayed with him his entire life.

“Well, William, where are you going?” asked the canal-boat captain.

“I don't know. Father is too poor to keep me at home any longer, and says I must make a living for myself now.” William went on to say that he had no skills, that he didn't know how to do anything except make soap and candles.

“Well,” said the old man, “let me pray with you and give you a little advice.”

There in the pathway, the two of them-a teenager and an old man- knelt down and the man prayed earnestly for William. Then, rising up, the boat captain said this:

“Someone will soon be the leading soap maker in New York. It can be you as well as anyone. Be a good man; give your heart to Christ; give the Lord all that belongs to Him of every dollar you earn; make an honest soap; give a full pound; and I am certain you will yet be a prosperous and rich man.”

When William arrived in New York, he had trouble finding a job, but he followed the old man's advice. He dedicated himself to Christ, joined a church, and began worshiping there. The first thing he did with the first dollar he earned was to give 10 percent of it to the Lord's work. From that point on, he considered ten cents of every dollar as sacred to the Lord. In fact, he soon began giving 20 percent of his income to the Lord, and then he raised it to 30 percent, then to 40 percent, then to 50 percent. And late in his life, he had become so successful that he devoted the whole of his yearly income-100 percent of it-to the Lord.

And even today, this very morning, nearly two hundred years later, some of you brushed your teeth or washed your faces with products from that young man's factory.

-Selected