The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-12-02

You went into some business enterprise,
aud five thousand dollars got out of your
grasp. You say the five thousand dollars
were wasted. O, no, that was only tuition
expensive schooling, but 1t was worth it.
Misfortune, with hard hand, comes upon
man and wakes him up, and by the very
force of circumstance, business men get to
be intelligent. Traders in grains must
know about foreign harvests: traders in
fruit must know about the prospects Of
tropical productions; manufacturers OF
American goods must know about the
tariff on imported articles; publishers of
books must know the new law of copy
right; owners of ships come to understand
winds, and shoals, and navigation. And so
every bale of cotton, and every raisin cask,
and every tea box, and every cluster of
bananas, become literature to our business
men.
Now, what is the use Of all this intelli-
gence unless you give it to Christ. Do you
suppose God gives you these opportunities
of Frightening up your intellect and Of in
creasing your knowledge merely to get
larger treasures and grander business2 o.,
no! Can it be that you have been learning
about foreign lands and people that dwell
under other skies, and yet have no mission
airy spirit. Can it be that you have been
learning the fellies and trickeries and hol-
lowness of the business world, and yet you
are not trying to bring to bear upon them
this Gospel which is to correct all abuses,
and abolish all ignorance, and correct all
mistakes, and arrest all crime, and irradi-
ate all darkness, and lift up all wretched-
ness? Can it be that, Notwithstanding your
acquaintance with the intricacies of bust
ness, you are ignorant of those things
which will last the soul long after bills Of
exchange and commission, and invoices
and consignments, and rent rolls, have
crumpled up and consumed in the fires of a
judgment dayl
Again God intended business life to be
to you a school of Christian integrity. No
age of the world ever offered so many IN
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
receptions in the fabric of goods! CONNER
cial life plies the land with trickeries innu-
merable, and there are so many people in
Brooklyn and New York who live life of
plumber, that when q 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 was no stock gamblers, and
wooden was wooden, and silk was silk, and
men were men. How rare it is that you
find man who can from his heart say: 81
never cheated in trade; I never overesti-
mated the value of goods when / was sell
ing them; / never covered up defect in a
fabric; never played upon the ignorance
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
Christian now as on the day when they sold
their first fierce of rice, or their first tirkiu
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
illimitably; when they could have made a
false assignment; when they could have
ruined neighbor for the purpose OF pick
ing 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
gold; now they can read the Bible without
thinking of the day when, with lie on
their soul, they kissed a book in the custom
house; now they can look into the laughing
faces of their children without thinking OF
orphans left by them penniless and house
less; now they can think of death without
having their knees knock together, and
their hearts sink, and their teeth chatter,
because there is a Judgment where all de-
frauders, and jockeys, and tricksters, and
charlatans, shall be doubly damned. Now
they can read in the Bible without finch
ing: "As the partridge sitteth ON eggs
and matches them not; so he that getteth
riches, and not by right, shall leave them
in the midst of his days, and ct the end
shall be fool''
A1asl if any of you, for the purpose OF
getting out OF temporary embarrassment
dare to sell your soul, or any portion of it
You may wake up in the midst of embar
| rassment and say sNo one is looking; this
transaction may be little out of the way
| but it is only once, only once.n On that
| one occasion you not only wreck your spirit
ual nature, but you despoil your business
| prospects. You put one dishonest dollar in
an estate, but it will not stand. You may
otAhC O. oIoiiouCSt uOlldI anu put III GOWN IL
the very depths of the earth, and you may
| roll on the top of it rocks and mountains
aad on the top of those rocks and mount
aims you may put all the banks and mon
eyed institutions, piling them up HEAVIER
high, but that one dishonest dollar down il
the depths of the earth will begin to rock
| and heave, and upturn itself until it comes
to the resurrection of damnation. You car
not hide dishonest dollar.
In the review of this subject there are
two or three things want to say, and the
| first is, let us have a larger sympathy fol
business men. / think it is a shame thai
in our pulpits we do not oftener preach OF
this subject and show that we appreciate
the sorrows, and struggles, and tempta
tions, and trials of every day life. Men wht
| toll with the hands are very apt to be sus
| picious of those who move in the world oil
traffic, and think that they get their money
idly, and that they give no equivalent. Mer
who raise the corn, and wheat, and rye, ant
| oats are very apt to think that grain mer
chants get easy profits. The first is very
apt to be jealous of the brain.
Plato and Aristotle were so opposed to al
kinds OF merchandise that they said com
merce was curse to the earth, and the,
recommended that cities should never b,
built any nearer the sea-coast than tie,
miles. But we have become wiser tina,
l t1of 1x~~&- - Al -