very creature." To fulfill this command does not mean that
Christian men are to confine themselves to the methods of those who
first heard the commission.

The question whether advertising pays will never be known in the
individual case, for, like marriage, you can't tell till you try it.
But in the aggregate, also like marriage, there is no doubt of its
value. The tremendous power of persistent advertising to carry an idea
of almost any kind into the minds of the people and stamp it there, is
amazing. How many "Sunny Jims," for instance, are there in this
audience? If there are none, it is singular; for learned judges have
referred to him in their decisions, sermons have been preached, and
volumes written about him, though it took a million dollars and two
years of persistent work to introduce this modern "Mark Tapley" to the
public. Have you a little fairy in your home? Do you live in Spotless
Town? Do you use any of the 57 varieties? "There's a reason." "That's
all." Formerly a speaker used a quotation from the Bible or Shakespeare
when he wanted to strike a common chord. Nowadays he works in an
allusion to some advertising phrase, and is sure of instant and
universal recognition.

The Socialists and other utopian critics, who are supposed to drill to
the bedrock of questions, have looked upon advertising as essentially a
parasite upon the production and distribution of wealth. They tell us
that in the good time coming, advertising will be relegated to the
scrap-heap of outworn social machinery, along with war, race prejudice,
millionaires, the lower education of women, and other things of an
undesirable nature. This has not been the experience, however, of those
"sinister offenders" who have come nearest to the cooeperative ownership
of wealth in this country--I refer of course to "The Trusts." When the
breakfast food trust was formed, one of the chief reasons for the
combination was that the rival companies thus hoped to save the cost of
advertising that had hitherto been required when they sold their
food-stuffs in competition with each other. But they very soon found
that their sales fell off after they stopped advertising, and they kept
on falling off until the advertising was resumed. This teaches us that
the American people have not enough gumption to buy even the staple
products they need except through the stimulus of hypnotic
suggestion--which is nothing but another name for advertising. Even
such