Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1886-11-10

grains must know about foreign harvests
Traders in fruit must know about the pros
poets of tropical production. Manufactul
ers Of American goods must know abou
the tariff on imported articles. Publisher
of books must know the new law of COPY
right. Owners of ships come to understan,
winds, and shoals, and navigation. An,
so every bale of cotton, and every raisil
cask, and every tea box, and every cluste
of bananas, becomes literature to our bust
ness men. Now what is the use of all thi
intelligence unless you give it to Christ P
Do you suppose God gives you these op
portunities of brightenidg up your intellec
and of increasing your knowledge merel,
to get larger treasures and grander bust
ness? O, no! Can it be that you hav,
been learning about foreign lands and peo
Pile that dwell under other skies, and We
have no missionary spirit? Can it be thai
you have been learning the follies anc
trickeries, and hollowness of the busines.
world, and yet you are not trying to bring
to bear upon them this Gospel which is to
correct all abuses, and abolish all igno
rance, and correct all mistakes, and arrest
all crime. and irradiate all darkness, and
lift up all wretchedness ? Can it be that,
notwithstanding your acquaintance with
the intricacies of business, you are ignorant
of those things which will last the soul long
after bills of exchange, and commissions,
and invoices, and consignments, and rent
rolls have crumpled up and been consumed
in the fires of Judgment day?
Again: God intended business life to be
to you school of Christian integrity. No
age of the world ever offered so many iu-
ducements for scoundrelism as are offered
now. There is hardly statute on the law
books that has not some back-door through
which miscreants can escape. How many
deceptions in the fabric of goods! Com
mercial life plies the land with trlckeries
innumerable, and there are so many people
in Brooklyn and New York live life of
plunder that when a man proposes a
straightforward, honest business it is al
most charged to greenness and want of
tact. All! my brethren, this ought not to
be. But have to tell you that it requires
more grace to be honest now than it did in
the days of our fathers, when business was
plain and there were no stock gamblers,
and woollen was woollen, and silk was silk,
and men were men. How rare it is that
You find a man who can from his heart say:
81 never cheated in trade. l never over
estimated the value Of goods when I was
selling them. never covered up defect
in fabric. l never played upon the inno-
rance of customer, and in all my estate
there is not one dishonest farthing." There
are those who can say it, They never let
their integrity bow or cringe to present
advantage. They are as pure and Chris
tian to-day as on the day when they sold
their first tierce of rice or their first firkin
of butter. There were times when they
could have robbed partner, when they
could have absconded with the funds of a
bank, when they could have sprung snap
Judgment, when they could have borrowed
iilimitably, when they could have made a
false assignment, when they could have
ruined a neighbor for the purpose of picking
up some Of the fragments; but they never
took one step on that pathway of hell fire.
Now they can pray without being haunted
with the chink of dishonest god. Now
they can read the Bible without thinking of
the day when, with lie on their soul, they
kissed the book in a custom house. Now
they can look into the laughing faces of
their children without thinking of orphans
left by them penniless and houseless. Now
they Can think of death without having
theIr e-ees knock together, and their hearts
sink, and their teeth chatter, because there
IS d Judgment where all defrauders, and
Jockeys, aid tricksters, and charlatans
shall be doubly damned. Now they can
read in the Bible without fiinching: Gas
the partridge stitch on eggs and hatcheth
them not; SO he that getteth riches, and
not by right, shall leave them in the midst
of his days, and at the end shall be fool"
Alas! if any of you, for the purpose of get
ting out of temporary embarrassment, dare
to sell your soul, or any portion of it, you
may wake up in the midst of embarrass-
ment and say: ''No one is looking. This
may be little out of the way,
but it is only once, only once" On that
one occasion you not only wreck your spirit
ual nature, but you despoil your business
You put one dishonest dollar
in an estate, but it will not stand. You may
take a dishonest dollar and put it down in
the very depths of the earth, and you may
roll on the top of it rocks and mountains,
aud on the top of those rocks and noun
tains you may put all the banks and money
ed institutions, piling them up heaven high; !;
but that one dishonest dollar down in the
depths of the earth will begin to rock, and
heave, and upturn itself until it comes to
the resurrection of damnation. You can
not hide dishonest dollar.
In the review of this subj ect there are
two Or three things I want to say, and the
first is, let US have a larger sympathy for
business men. | think il is shame that
in our pulpits we do not oftener preach on
this subject, and show that we appreciate
the sorrows, and struggles, and temptations,
and trials of every day life. Men who toll
with the hand are very apt to be suspicious
Of those who move in the world of traffic,
and think that they get their money idly,
and that they give no equivalent. Men who
raise the corn, and wheat, and rye, and
oats are very apt to think that grain mer-
chants get easy profits. The fist is very
apt to be jealous of the brain. Plato and
Aristotle were SO opposed to all kinds OF
that they said commerce was
the curse of the earth, and they recommend
ed that cities should never be built any
nearer the seacoast than ten miles. But
we have become wiser than that, and you
know that there are no harder workers than
those who plan and calculate in stores, and
banks and counting-houses. What though
their apparel be neat; what though their
manners be refined-do not put them down
as idlers. They carry loads heavier than a
hod of bricks; they go into exposures keen
er than the cutting of the east wind; they
scale mountains higher than the Alps and
Himalayas, and maintaining their Christian
integrity, Christ will at the last accost
them, saying: well done, thou good and
faithful servant; thou hast been faithful
over few things; l will make thee ruler
over many things; enter thou into the joy
of thy Lord"
also enjoin you to quit all fretfulness
about business matters. Is there not some
thing in your own household that you
would not give up for the worldly success
other men have? Besides that, if these trials
lifted you up you ought to bless God for
the whip of discipline. The larger the note
you have to pay the greater the uncertain
ty of business life, the better for your soul,
if Jesus Christ leads you triumphantly
through. How do l know? l know it by
his principle-that the hotter the furnace
the better the refining. There have been
thousands of men who have gone through
the same path you are now going through
with an aching heart. There are multi
trdes before the throne of God who were
lasbed with cares and anxieties innumera-
BILE, and were cheated out of everything
but their coffin. They were sued, they
were elected, they were imprisoned fol
debt, they were maltreated, they were