The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1886-11-04

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 the 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? o,
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 been learning
the follies and trickeries and hollowness 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 crlm-
pied up and consumed in the fires of judg-
ment day.
Again: God intended business life TO be
to you a school of Christian integrity. No
age of the world ever offered so many indu-
cements for scoundrelism as 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 goods! Commercial life plies the
land with trickeries innumerable, and there
are so many people in Brooklyn and New
York who live life of plunder, that when a
man proposes a straightforward, honest bust
ie OH to
want of tact. Ahi my brethren, this ought
not to be. But 1 have to tell you that it re-
quires 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 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. 1 never
overestimated the value of goods when
was selling them. / never covered up a de-
feet 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 ad-
vantage. They are as pure and Christian to-
day as on the day when they sold their first
tierce of rice or their first ffrizin of butter
There were times when they could have
robbed a partner, when they could have alb
seconded with the funds of a bank, when they
could have sprung a 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 picking up some of the frag-
ments; but they never took one step on that
pathway of he'll FIRE. Now they can pray
without being haunted with the chink of dis
honest gold. Now they can read the Bible
~ Il
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 heuseless. Now they can think
of death without having their knees knock to-
gether, and their hearts sink, and their teeth
chatter, because their is a judgment where all
defrauders, and Jockeys, and tricksters, and
charlatans shall be doubly damned. Now
they can real in the Bible without Hinching:
Gas the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatch
eth 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 a fool.n
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 embarrassment
and say: "No one is looking This transac-
ton may be little out of the way, but it is
only once, only once" On that one occasion
YOU not only wreck your spiritual nature but
you despoil your business prospects. You
put one dishonest dollar in an
estate but it will not stand. You may take
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 mountains you
may put all the banks and moneyed institu-
tions, piling them up heaven high, but that
one dishonest dollar down in the depths of
the earth will begin to rock, and heaYe, and
upturn itself until it comes to the resurrec.
ton of damnation. You cannot hide q dis
honest 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 bust
ness men. think it is a shame that in our
palpits we do not oftener preach on this sub
ject and show that we appreciate the sorrows,
and struggles, and temptations, and trials of
every day life. Men who toll with the hands
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 tLsy give no equivalent. Men
who raise the corn, and wheat, and
rye, and oats are very apt to think
that grain merchants get easy profits The |
Plato and Aristotle were SO opposed to all
kinds of merchandise that they said com
merce was the curse of the earth, and they
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 he neat, what though !
their manners be retired, do not put them
down as idlers They carry loads heavier
than hod of bricks. titey go into exposures |
keener than the cutting of the eest wind. |
they scale mountains higher than the Alps and |
and maintaining their Christian |
integrity, Christ will at the last accost them, !
saying:' @4Veli done, thou good and faithful |
servant; thou hast been faithful over a few
things, 1 will make thee ruler over many |
things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord" !
1 also enjein yQp to quit all fretfulncss /
about business matters. Is there not some |
thing in youS own household that you would |
not give up for the worldly success other |
men 'llazes Besides that, if these trials lifted |
you up. you ought co bless ffod for the whip |
of discipline. The larger the note yOu have |
to pay, the greater the uncertainty of busi-
ness life, the better for your soul If Jesus |
Christ leads you triumphantly through |
HOW 90 knOWf L KNOW 40 Dy tllS kllilNIEIo !
that the hotter the furnace the better the |
There have been thousands of |
men who heye gone through the same path !
you are now going through with an aching |
heart There are multitudes before the |
throne of God who were lashed with cares
ana anxiDties innumerabla, and were cheated |
out of everything but their coffin They |
were sued, they were elected, they We're i'm
prjsoned for debt, they were maltreated, they !
were throttled by constables with whole packs
of writs, they weTe sold out by sheriifs, !
they had to confess judgments, they had to
with creditors, and their last |
hour ON earth was disturbed by the fact that |
their deeF bell was rung loudly and angrily |
by the hand of some imaetylous creditor, who |
was surprised that that sick man should be |
so irnpertinent and outrageous as TO die be
fore he had paid him the last three shillings
and sixpence. Obi how men are tossed and |
irivenl l had a friend who went from one
anxiety to another; good and great heart |
he had, but everything he put his hand to |
seemed to fail. Misfortunes clustered around, |
and after awhile 1 heard he was dead, and
the first word said was; "Goodi he has got |