The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-02-13
TOPICS OF THE PREACHERS
Business Men Used by God to Teach the
Doctrine 0fthe Brotherhood Of Man.
Theaters, Dancing and Card Playing Keep
from the Church Children of Protesting
Christians-ReviVal at Roberts Park.

Episcopal Church, on 1.-THE Man of Business
taking the double text .Seest thou man dill
gent in business, he shall stand before kings"
and mot slothful in business, fervent in spirit,
serving the Lord" He remarked that the writer
of the first text business man, with the
large business his hands of governing great
and prosperous kingdom, and the who
wrote the second text was also business ian,
with the business his hands of
converting the gentle world to Christian
ity. Solomon. the Israelitss' King. and
ST. Paul, the gsntiles APOSTLE were fine types
of business men. The grandeur. power and
glcry of the former were exhibited in the mag
nifcent temple at Jerusalem, .'the house of the
forest of Lebanon" See yonder, glitterine in
the Or1ents sun. the great palace of the King,
with it's pillared porticoes and noble tower,
adorned with thousand shields of gold. Solo
mon ascends the royal throne by its ivory
stairs, and takes his seat on the back of the
bronzed bull, facing the people. The royal fam
lily is numerous that the caterers every day
slaughter one hundred sheep and thirteen oxen,
and provide the choicest birds and
venson to feed the kingly retinue
Harken to the thunderous stamping of the four
thousand noble horees in the royal stables.
Think of the numbers of servants and officials
who must have been engaged in this extensive
housekeeping, or in gathering provender for
the Kings stables. Yet this glorious King
reigns with easy dignity and BETTING majesty,
not. only this royal household, with its
army of servants and attendants but over the
mighty kingdom of judah, To do this required
that he should be business man, with business
methods and business principles. and Solomon
was a business man. Why, my friends he
even an early riser, and used to take a ride
on horseback at dawn-sweeping down
the streets of Jerusalem the golden" with
great cavalcade of mounted archers and cour-
tiers. his very recreations having royal bust
ness style to them. He a business man, not
only laying down the cautions ana economies OF
business in that wonderful book of Proverbs,
but engaging in vast business enterprises, and
large business schemes from the navy that
swept the seas for commerce, to the building of
the Temple. which the glory of his people.
His age such age we live in now. Eng
land has been called "a nation of shop-keepers."
This descriptive phrase is just, but
instead of being stigma. it makes
her peculiar glory. She is nation of shop
Keepers so we. Both nations made up
of business men, whose immediate and direct
purpose is to gather in money. The charge that
England Is nation of shop keepers is due to the
still lingering spirit of a worn-out feudalism.
The nation called shop-keepsrs was once very
different nation, wherein the king was the state,
and the scepter had become crowbar to be-
labor the people into the slavish lines of feudal
despotism. Feudalism grew to be bandit
and the simple codes of laws of
bility the great privilege of getting drunk
in their castles and fighting each other whom
sober. In the meantime trade and the business
man had appeared. fostered by peace and the
lazy luxury OF the nobility. Barter and ex
change drove men to foreign parts III ships and
caravans, instituted new order of things, gave
trader is not profoundly learned man in books.
but trade rubs into him knowledge of politics,
geography, jurisprudence and ethics. The mer
chant gets to know something about all sub
jects. His literature is connected with the
thousand and one objects of the marts. 1t was
mercan.ilism, with its keen, intellect
power of mischievous feudasrn and displaced
the Drawn of noble and yeoman, called forth all
the power sleeping in the old dynasties, aud in
stalled information and science in the stead Of
muscle and physical force. See the power of
trade over the great events of history By its
light we catch sight of Phmnicia careering
the ancient seas; of Greece receiving her colo
MES and her lights; of Carthage spreading enter
prise around the West. of ancient Britain,
emerging out of the unknown, and holdingi in her
hand. as her modest contribution to mankind. a
goodly supply of Tin. 1t is the business man who
first penetrates the distant East beyond
the tn range 90, OF Western politics and war war:
brings to use cinnamon, pearl, ivory,
diamond, muslin and the sandal-wood of the
ClefSOD6S6.
presides at the inauguration of the new age.
When Europe POUNDS empires beyond the sea,
and East and West meet together in new rival
ries and friendships, sweeping his course from
Tadmor to San Francisco what magic commune
ties spring up as he passes. Solomon's fair city
in the wilderness, Alexandria by the mouths of
the Nile. Venice on the fiat isles of the Pc, Bas-
sorah by the Tigris, the city of Give aud Hast
ings By the ancient Ganges-all this is the work
of the ubiquitous business He all
things-the ship, with the canvas for her wings
md ha mac of for haY canf. ha Haaf
the quivery steam boat the fleet reindeer, the
camel, the very birds of the air do him service.
Our power abroad. our quiet at home and the
stability of our government depend the bust
ness man. Our great railroad kings stretch out
their iron fingers and absolutely hold In their
grasp the veal or woe of the country. Scarcely
. town of note but has its pregnant tale of the
doines, benevolences of a successful business
man. Think of our great railroad and steam
by their magical rod of iron the sleeping
energies of land and water Think of the un-
conscious work for patriotism and re-
hgon these men are doing by their
locomotives and steamboats,, shooting like
enormous shuttles across the thousand various
threads of national descent and employment,
houry ,sss IN ONE y tha
biographers of these meul johnson has written
the lives of the poets,e Vosari of artists, Camp
bell of the Lord Chancsllors, but where are the
biographies of our business menl Go to the
libraries; you will there be told of the momeu-
tous fact that Lord Byron kept his figure slim
when Oliver Goldsmith presented himself to
bishop for ordination he arrayed in scarlet
trousers; but literature has been grimly silent
about the mighty achievements of the
business man. Business is dirty
thing" literary Inns have said. Yes,
in dirty hands it is dirty thing. and in rude
hands rude thing. and in covetous hands
paltry, petty thing, yet it is thing which is one
of the mightest levers in the hands of God to
teach the Christly doctrine of tine brotherhood
OF man, binding all nations together in one fam
lily. It opened the way to the foreign
missionaries, it banished infant murder from
the Pacific isles. Oh. that business men would
get tie thought of the sacredness of business
life. that they would that God is using
them. that his purpose flames out clearer and
clearer from age to age in business life.
They try to tie up their properly, but
God makes their will rope of sand
restoring to the whole their narrowed bounty
They the religious and moral element in
the fortunes of the Barings, Peabodys aud Roth