Passing On

 

Costs and Blessings

 The death of Sir Henry Bessemer called attention to the business career of a man who succeeded in making an immense fortune and yet did it in a way that blessed everybody else in the world.

As the result of long and laborious scientific investigation and experiments, he concluded that it was possible to convert iron ore into steel, so that the latter material could be sold at a mere fraction of its cost. The patents he took out to cover his invention enabled him for a series of years to obtain a royalty from using his apparatus and meanwhile, the price of steel was reduced to about one-tenth of its old quotations.

The shift in core values in societies over decades has been noticeable in many industries! Perhaps the most transformed industry is the rise of new high-technology, particularly in all sectors of the computer and allied industries. Although the costs of parts of consumer goods have dropped sharply, prices are slowly falling. With much R & D the next big thing could occur with greater regularity and endow mankind with more than it asked or expected.

 While the inventor of the steel process made a great fortune, he benefited the world many thousands of millions of dollars a year—a benefit which has been shared, both directly and indirectly, by every person in every country on the earth. This man's career is a signal illustration of the universal blessing of Christian character. Every person who finds salvation in Jesus Christ and enters into the joy of communion with God not only enriches his soul beyond comparison, but enriches everybody else who comes in contact with him. And every sinner he can lead into the same blessed experience becomes endowed with spiritual wealth, which also adds to the joy of the one who won him to Christ.

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