The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1886-11-11


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-
nessl Can it be that, Notwithstanding your
acquaintance with the intricacies of busi-
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
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
deceptions 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
plunder, that when a man proposes a
straightforward, honest business, 1t 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
woOlen was woolen, and silk was silk, and
men were men. How rare it is that you
find man who can from his heart say: II
never cheated in trade; I never overesti-
mated the value of goods when was sell
ing them; never covered up defect in
fabric; l 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 tierce of rice, or their first trkin
of butter. There were times when they
could have robbed a partner; when they
could have absconded with the funds of
bank; when they could have sprung a snap
Judgment; when they could have borrowed
illimitably; when they could have made
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 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 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: GAS 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 at the end
shall be fool"
AlasI 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: "No one is looking; this
transaction 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 dospoil your business
prospects. 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,
and on the top of those rocks and mount
aims you may put all the banks and mon
eyed 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 subject there are
two or three things want to say, and the |
first is, let US have larger sympathy for |
business men. think it is a shame that |
in our pulpits we do not oftener preach on
this subject and show that we appreciate |
the sorrows, and struggles, and tempta- |
tions, and trials Of everyday life. Men who |
toll with the hands are very apt to be sus-
picious 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 first is very
apt to be jealous of the brain.
Plato and Aristotle were so opposed to all |
kinds of merchandise that they said COM
merce was curse to the earth, and they
that cities should never be |
built any nearer the sea-coast 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 hod of bricks, they go into |
exposures keener than the cutting OF the |
east wind, they scale mountains higher |
than the Alps and Himalayas, and main |
tanning their Christian integrity, Christ |
will at last accost them, saying; "Well |
done, thou good and faithful servant; thou |
hast been faithful over few things, will |
make thee ruler over many things; enter |
thou into the joy of thy Lord"
l 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 havel Besides that, if these trials |
lifted you up, you ought to bless God for |
you have to pay, the greater the uncer.
tainty of business life, the better for your
soul if Jesus Christ leads you trumphantly
through How do l knows know it by
this principle-the hotter the furnace the
DCbJCI bllC 1hSIO LdNO pSOu bllOu-
sands Of men who have gone through the
same path you are now going through with
an aching heart. There are multi
tudes before the throne of God
who were lashed with cares and
anxieties innumerable, and were cheat
ed out of every thing but their coffin.
They were sued; they were elected; they
were imprisoned for debt; they were NAL
treated; they were throttled by constables
with whole packs Of writs; they were sold
out by sheriffs; they had to confess judg-
ments; they had TO compromise with cred
itors, asd their last hour on earth was dis
turbed by the fact that their door-bell was
rung loudly and angrily by the hand of
some impetuOus creditor, who was sur
prised that the sick man should be so i'm
pertinent and outrageous as to die before
he had paid him the last three shillings and