The Golden Rule
James Cash Penney named his first store "The Golden Rule" in 1902. He operated on a radical principle: treat customers and employees the way you'd want to be treated.
From Hell to Paradise
When the Great Depression hit, Penney lost everything - his fortune, his health, his confidence. He checked into a sanitarium, convinced he would die.
One morning, he heard singing from the hospital chapel: "Be not dismayed whate'er betide, God will take care of you."
"I felt as if I had been transported from hell to paradise," Penney wrote. "I felt the power of God as I had never felt it before."
Rebuilt on Faith
He walked out of that sanitarium with renewed faith. He rebuilt his business on the same Golden Rule principles. By his death in 1971, J.C. Penney had over 1,600 stores.
But Penney counted a different measure of success: "The greatest lesson I learned is that God is concerned with every phase of life, that He enters into everything we do."
