The weekly sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1886-1887, 1886-11-04

ors They have moral reflections for the
sudden reverses Of fortune. How are you
going TO get that grace Of p4tience' Not
through hearing ministers preach about it
Oh, no. II you get it at all you will get it
in the world where you sell hats, and plead
causes, and tin roofs, and make shoes, and
turn banisters, and ploE corn. l pray God
that through the turmoil and sweat and ex-
aspera ton Of your everyday life you may
hear the voice OF Christ saying to you: IF
patience possess your soul, let patience have
q perfect work.
Again: God intended business life to be to
you school for the attaining of knowledge.
Merchants do not read many books, study
many lexicons, dive into great profounds,
yet through the force of circumstances they
get intelligent on questions OF politics; and
finance, and geography, and Jurisprudence,
and ethics. Business Is a hard schoolrnistress.
If her pupils will not learn in any other way,
with unnlerciful hand she snnites them on the
head and on the heart with ineXorable loss.
You went into come business enterprise, and
five thousand dollars got out Of your grasp.
You say the five thousand dollars were
wasted. o, mol that was only tuition. E1-
pensive schooling, but it was worth it. Mis-
fortune with hard hand, comes upon man
and wakes him up, and by the very force OF
circumsta nces business men get to be intelli-
gent. Traders in grains must know about
foreign harvests Traders in fruit must
know about tn. prospects OF tropical
production. Manufacturers Of American
goods must know about the tariff on imported
articles. Publishers Of books must know the
new law of copyright. Owners OF ships come
to understand winds and shoals and naviga-
ton 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 tAe use OF all
this intelligence unless you give it TO Christi
Do you suppose God gives You these oppor-
tunities of Frightening up your intellect and
Of increasing your knowledge merely to get
larger treasures and grander business! .,
mol Can it be that you have been learning
about foreign lands and people that dwell I'M
der other skies, and yet have no missionary
spirit' Can it be that you have boon learning
tho folles and trickeries and holiowness 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 igno-
rance, and correct all mistakes, and arrest all
crime, and irradiate all darkness, and lift up
all wretchednesS' Can it be that, notwith-
standing your acquaintance with the intrica-
cies 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 crum-
pied up and consumed in the fires Of judg
Inent day.
Again: God intended business life 10 be
to you a school of Christian integrity. No
age of the world ever offered many indu-
cements for scoundrelism are offered now.
There Is hardly statute on the law books that
has not some back door through which mis-
creants can escape How many deceptions in
the fabric of goodsl Commercial life plies the
land with trieksries innumerable, and there
In, -1r-v, o,,1 Nnrxy
York who live a life Of plumber, that when a
man proposes straightforward, honest bust
ness, # Is almost charged to greenness and
want Of tact. All! my brethren, this ought
not - be. But I have to tell you that it re-
quires moro grace 10 be honest now than 1t
did In the days Of our fathers, when business
was plain, and there wore no stock gamblers,
and woolon was wooden, and silk was
silk, and mon wore mon. How rare it is shat
you find a man who can from his heart
say: 81 never cheated IN trade. I never
overestimated the value OF goods when I
was selling them I never covered up a de-
feet in fabric 1 never played upon ths
Ignorance OF customer, and in AL nay estate
there il not enc dishonest faTthihg.' There
are those who can say X. They never let
their integrity bow or cringe to present nd
vantage. They are as pure and Christian to
day as the day when they sold their first
fierce Of rico or their first frkin Of butter.
There were times when they could have
robbed partner, when they could have alb
seconded with the funds Of a bank, when they
could havs sprung snap Judgment, when
they could have borrowed ilimitably, when
they sould have made false assignment,
when they could have ruined n neighbor for
the purpose OF picking up sonso Of the frag.
ments but they never took ono step ON that
pathway Of hell fire. Now they can pray
| without being haunted with the chink of dis
honest gold. Now thoy can read the Bible
without thinking of the day when, with a lie
| On thex soul, thsy kissed the book IN q
custom house. Now they osn look into
| the laughing faces of their children
withou. thinking OF orphans lef. by them
penniless and houselesS Now they can thiRA
! Of death without having their knees knock to
/ gether and their hearts sink, and their teeth
4 chatter because their Is g Judgment where al
| defrauders, and jockeys, and tricksters, anC
| charlatans shall be doubly damned. Nov
| they can real in the Bible without finching
"tAs the partridge stitch on eggs and hatch
eth them not; SO he that getteth riches, ane
not by right, shall leave them in the midst O
his days, and at the end shall be a fool.
Alas. if amy OF you, for the purpose Of got
! ting ous OF temporary embarrassment, dar
to sell your soul, or any portion of it. You
may wake up In the midst Of embarrassment
and say: ''No ono is looking. This transae
ton may be a little out Of the way, but it i
only once, only once" On that one occasion
you not only wreck your spiritual nature blu
you dcspoil your business prospects. 70,
put one dishonest dollar Il o.
estate but tt will not stand. You may tax
a dishonest dollar and put 1t down in tn
very depths Of the earth, and you may rol
on the top of it rocks and mountains, and o.
the top OF those rocks land mountains yo
may put sill the banks and moEeyed institu
tions, pilin. them up hsaveH nigh, but tina
cns dishonest dollar down in the depths @
tbs earth will begin to rock, and heavo, an
upturI itself until it comes to the resurreC
ton of damnatfon. You cennot hide dis
honest dollar.
In thu revisv OF this subject thsrs are tw
or three things want so say, and tho FIR,
is, let us havo larger sympathy for bus
meas men think it is q shame thas in GU
puipits ua do not oit9nor preach on this sOE