The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1888-03-22

or England, started by william Patterson
in 1912, up to this day managing the stu
pendous debt Of England; Bank of Scot
land, founded in 1895; Bank of Ireland,
1888; Bank of North America, planned by
Robert Morris, 1771, without whose fnan-
cial help all the bravery of our grand
fathers would not have achieved American
independence. Butnow we have banks in
all our cities and towns, thousands and
thousands. On their shoulders are the in
terests of private individuals and great
corporations. In them are the great arte-
ries through which run the currents Of the
nations life. They have been the re-
sources of the thousands of fnancierS in
days of business exigency. They stand
for accommodation, for facility, for indl-
vidual, state and national relief. At their
head and in their management there IS
as much interest and moral worth as in
any class Of men-perhaps more. How
nefarious, then, the behavior of those
who bring disrepute upon this venerable,
benignant, and God-honored institution.
We also deplore abuse of trust funds,
because they fly in the face of that divine
goodness which seems determined to bless
this land. We are having the eighth year
of unexampled national harvest. The
wheat gamblers get hold of the wheat, and
the corn gamblers get hold of the corn.
The full tide Of Gods mercy toward this
land is put back by those great dykes of dis
honest resistance. When God provides
enough food and clothing to feed and APP
parel this whole nation like princes, the
scramble of dishonest men to get more
lhan their share, and get it at all hazards,
keeps everything shaking with uncertainty
and everybody asking: "What next?"
Every week makes new revelations. How
many more bank presidents and bank
cashiers have been specializing with other
peoples money, and how many more bank
directors are in imbecile silence letting the
perfdy go on, the great and patient GOD
only knows? My opinion is that We have
got near the bottom. The wind has been
3ricked from the great bubble of American
speculation. The men who thought that
the Judgment day was at least 5000 years
off, found it in 1882, 1887, and 1886; and
this nation has been taught that men must
keep their hands out of other peoples
pockets. Great businesses built on bor-
rowed capital have been obliterated, and
men who had nothing have lost all they
had. | believe we are started on higher
career 'of prosperity thnn this land has
ever seen, if, and if, and if.
If the first men, and especially Christian
men, will learn never t. speculate upon
borrowed capital. If you have a mind to
| take your own money and turn it into
kites, to fly them over every commons in
the United States, you do society no
wrong, except when you tumble your help
less children into the poor house for the
| public to take care of. But you have no
| right to take the money of others and turn
it into kites. There is one word that has
deluded more people into bankruptcy and
state prison and perdition than any other
word in commercial life, and that is the
word borrow; that one word is responsible
for all the defalcations, and embezlle-
ments, and financial considerations OF the
last twenty years. When executors con-
clude to speculate with the funds of an
estate committed to their charge, they do
not purloin, they say they only borrow;
when banker makes an overdraught upon
his institution, he does not commit theft
he only borrows. When the officer of q
company, by flaming advertisement in
some religious papers, and gilt certificates
of stock, gels multitude Of country peo-
pie to put their small earnings into an en-
terprise for carrying on some undeveloped
nothing, he does not fradulently take their
money, he only borrows. When young
man with easy access to his employer 8
money drawer, or the confidential clerk
by close propinquity 10 the account books,
sion, he expects to put it back; he will put
it all back; he will put it all back very
soon. He only borrows. What is needed
is some man Of gigantic limbs to take his
place at the curbstone in front of Trinity
Church, and when the word borrow comes
bounding along, kick it clean through to
Wall street ferry boat, and if, striking on
that, it bounds clear over till it strikes
Brooklyn heights or Brooklynhill, twill be
we'll for the City of Churches.
Why, when you are going to do wrong,
pronounce so long word as borrow, a
word Of six letters, when you can get
shorter word more descriptive OF the
reality, word of only five letters, the
word steal2
There are times when we all borrow, and
borrow legitimately, and borrow with the
divine blessing, for Christ in his sermon
on the mount enjoins, "From him that
would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
A young man rightly borrows money to
get his education. Purchasing a house
and not being able to pay all down in
cash, the purchaser rightly borrows it on
mortgage. Crises come in business when
it would be wrong for man not to bor-
row. But roll this warning through all
the aisles, over the backs of all these pews,
never borrow to speculate; not dollar,
. not cent, not farthing. Young men,
young men, warn you by your worldly
prospects and the value of your immortal
souls, do not do it. There are breakers
, distinguished for their shipwrecks-the
Hanways, the Needles, the Caskets, the
Douvers, the Anderlos, the Skerries-and
many craft has gone to pieces on these
rocks; but have to tell you that all the
Hanways, and the Needles, and the Cask-
cts, and the Skerries are as nothing COM
pared with the long line Of breakers which
bound the ocean of commercial life north,
south, east and west, with the white foam
Of their despair and the dirge Of their
! damnation-the breakers of borrow.
If I had only worldly weapon TO use on
this subject 1 would give you the fact fresh
/, from the highest authority, that 80 pei
, cent. of those who go into the speculation
in Wall street lose all, but have a better
: warning than worldly warning. From
the place where men have perished-body,
: mind, and soul-stand off, stand off! ABB
;; stract pulpit discussion must aside on this
, question. Faith and repentance are abso-
! Iutely necessary, but faith and repentance
. are no more doctrines of the Bible thar
commercial integrity. Render to all theil
, dues. Owe no man anything. And while
I, mean to preach faith and repentance
more and more to preach them, l do no
, mean to spend any time in chasing The
, Hittites and Jebusites and Girgashites o.
! Bible times, when there are so many evils
right around US destroying men and wo.
) man for time and for eternity. The great
est evangelIStic preacher the world eveI
saw, man who died for his evangelism
peerless Pnul-wrote to the Romans
"Provide things honest in the sight of all
men," wrote to the Corinthians: "Do tha
, which is houest;" wrote to the Philippians
, Whatsoever things are honest" wrote to
the Hebrews: "Willing in all things tc
, live honestlY.p The Bible saws that faitt