Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-08
YOUNG MAN, BEWARE.
DR.. De Witt Talmage breaches in st.
Louis From the Text,
AS AN OK TO THE SLAUGHTER.
He Points Out the Dangers of Borrowing,
and Shows That
EVERY MAN POSSESSES SOME CAPITAL
ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE D1sPAToHl

ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DIsPATcH.l
ST. LOUIS, April THE Rev. L. DE
Witt Talmage, D. D., of Brooklyn,
preached here this evening to a vast audi
ence. His subject was 1.-THE Slaughter, ="
and his text. Proverbs, vii, q: Gas an OK
to the slaughter" The eloquent preacher
said:
There is nothing in the voice or manner of
the butcher to indicate to the OK that there is
death ahead The OK thinks he is going on to
a rich pasture field of clover, where all day
long he will revel in the herbaceous luxuri-
ance; but after while the men and the boys
close in upon him with sticks and stones and
shouting, and drive him through the bars and
into a doorway where he is fastened, and with
a well aimed stroke the ak fells him; and so
the anticipation of the redolent pasture field
is completely disappointed. So many young
man has been driven on by temptation to what
he thought would be paradIsiacal enjoyment;
but after a while influences with darker hue
and swatfier arm close in upon him, and he
finds that instead of making an excursion into
garden he has been driven 'as an OK to the
slaughter"
First-We are apt to blame young men for
being destroyed when we ought to blame the
influences that destroy them. Society slaughters
great many young men by the behest, "Hou
must keep up appearances; whatever be your
salary, you must dress as well as others, you
must wine and brandy as many friends you
must smoke as costly cigars, you must give as
expensive entertainments and you must live in
as fashionable boarding house. II you haVn't I
the money, borrow. If you can't borrow make
a false entry, or subtract here and there a bill
from bundle of bank bills; you will only have
to make the deception little while; in Few
months, or in year or two, you can make all
right. Nobody will be hurt by it; nobody will
be the wiser. You yourself will not be dam
aged" By that awful process 100000 men have
been slaughtered for time and
SLAUGHTERED FOR ETERNITY.
Suppose you borrow. There is nothing
wrong about borrowing money There is hard
ly man in the house but has sometimes bor-
rowed money. Vast estates have been built on
a borrowed dollar. But there are two kinds of
borrowed money. Money borrowed for the
purpose of starting or keeping up legitimate
enterprise and expense, and money borrowed
to get that which you can do without. The
first is right, the other is wrong. If you have
money enough of your own to buy coat how
ever plain, and then you borrow money for a
dandy's outfit, you have taken the first revolu-
tiOn of the wheel down grade. Borrow for the
necessities; that may be we'll Borrow for the
luXuries; that tips your prospects over in the
wrong direction,
The Bible distinctly says the borrower is
servant OF the lender 1t is a bad state OF
street to escape meeting some one whom you
owe. If young men knew what is the despot-
ism of being in debt more Of them would keep
out of it, What did debt do for Lord Bacon,
with a mind towering above the centuries? 1t
induced him to take bribes and convict him
self as a criminal before all ages. What did
debt do for Walter Scott? Broken hearted at
AbboUsford. Kept him writing until his hand
gave out in paralysis to keep the Sheriff away
from his pictures and statuary. Better for him
if he had minded the maxim which he had CHS
ala 4 af lanFs
not. want not"
The trouble is, my friends, the people do not
understand the ethics of going IN debt, and
that if you purchase goods with no expectation
of paying for them, or go into debts which you
cannot meet you steal Just so much money.
If l go into grocer's store and buy sugars
and coffees and meat with no capacity to pay
for them and no intention of paying for them,
am more dishonest than if go into the store,
and when the grocer's face is turned the other
way I'LL my pockets with the articles of mer-
chandise and
CARRY OFF A HAM.
In the one case take the merchants time
and 1 take the time of his messenger to trans
fer the goods to my house, while in the other
case take none of the time of the merchant
and 1 wait upon myself, and 1 transfer the
goods without anY trouble to him. In other
words, sneak thief is not so bad as man
who contracts for debts he never expects to
pay.
Yet in all our. cities there are families that
move every May day to get into proximity to
other grocers and meat shops and apothecaries.
They owe everybody within half mile of
where they now live, and next May they will
move into a distant part of the city, finding
new lot of victims. Meanwhile you. the honest
family in the new house, are bothered day by
day by the knocking at the door of disap-
pointed bakers and butchers. and drygoods
dealers, and newspaper carriers, and you are
asked where your predecessor is. You do not
know. 1t was arranged you should not know.
Meanwhile your predecessor has gone to some
distant part of the city, and the people who
have anything to sell have sent their wagons
and stopped there to solicit the valuable" Gus
tom of the new neighbor, and he the new
neighbor, with great complaceney and with an
air Of aftuence, orders the finest steaks and
highest priced sugars. and the best of the
canned fruits, and. perhaps, all the newspapers
And the debts will keep on accommodating until
he gets his goods on the Both of next April in
the furniture cart.
Now. let me say, if there are any such per-
sons in the house. if you have any regard for
your own convenience, YOU had better remove
to some greatly distant part of the city. 1t is
200 bad that, having had all the trouble of con-
suming the goods, you should also have the
trouble of bing dunned! And let me say that
If you find that this pictures your own photo
graph, instead OF being In church you ought to
be in the penitentiary! No wonder that so
many of our merchants fail in business.
THEY ARE SwINDLED
into bankruptcy by these wandering Arabs,
these nomads of city life. They cheat the gro
Ger out OF the green apples which make them
sick, the physician who attends their distress
and the undertaken who fits them out for de-
parture from the neighborhood where they
owe everybody when they pay the debt of ma
ture, the only debt they ever do payi
Now our young men are coming up in this de-
praved state of commercial ethics, and am So
licitous about them. l want to warn them
against being slaughtered on the rough edges
of debt. You want many things you have not
my young friends You shall have them if you
have patience and honesty and industry. Ger
tain lines of conduct always lead out to certain
successes
There is law which controls even those
things that seem haphazard. l have been told
by those who have observed that it is possible
to calculate just how many letters will be sent
TO the Dead Letter Office every year through
misdirection: that it is possible to calculate
Just how many letters will be detained for lack
OF postage stamps through the forgetfulness of
the senders, and that it is possible to tell just
how many people will fall in the streets by
slipping on an orange peel. In other words,
there are no accidents The most insignificant
event YOU ever heard of is the link between
two eternities-the eternity of the past and the
eternity of the future. Head the right way,
young man, and you will come out at the right
goal
Bring me young man and tell me what his
physical health is, and what his mental caliber,
and what his habits. and will tell you what
will be his destiny for this world, and his des-
tiny for the world to come. and will not make
inaccurate prophecies out of the 5O0 An this