Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-02-24
FIVE BIG QUESTIONS.
Rev. Beazell's Practical Sermon to
y the Young Man in Business.
SOME OF THE AIDS TO SUCCESS.
An Allegheny Pastor Talks of Mans Wrongs
to His FellOWman.
EXTRACTS FROM SOME OTHER SERMONS

Rev. B. F. Beazell, pastor Of the Oakland
M. E. Church, last night, read the answers
he had received to his circulars, containing
five questions which he sent out to proml-
nent business and professional men, asking
for information to be used in an address to
the young men of his congregation. The
first was, where did the informant spend his
boyhoOd days, in the city or country? Sec
ond, which is of the least value to the sue
cess of young men, industry, courtesy, hon.
esty, courage, money or luck? Third. what
are the three greatest perils OF city life for
young men? Fourth, is special training,
aside from the school, desirable to fit young
men for business?' Fifth, when a boy, did
be attend Sabbath school and church?
Mr.. Beazell began by stating that of busi-
ness and professional men in the cities, in
city and are from the country. In every
group Of men is from the city and from
the country. Pittsburg, he said, was pecu-
liar from other cities. In this city large
percentage of the sons enter business with
their fathers. In the table of statistics the
odds were against the city outside of Pitts
burg.
One-third of the answers he received said
the only practical experience necessary was
a school education; another third said
special training was usually practicable,
while the remainder said that a special
training was indispensable to succeed in
business. He then enumerated the things of
least value to success, and divided them as
follows: Industry, courtesy, honesty, money
and luck. Luck, some believed, wasa for
tunate conjunction OF circumstances over
which the individual had no control. Others
thought it was an arrangement which ex-
listed to the benefit of an individual without
any personal exertion of himself
A number of his correspondents voted
against money as factor in success. The
successful men OF to-day are the poor of
yesterday. He gave them the following
rules to study out: First, earn something;
second, spend less than you earn; third,
earn it before you spend it. The kind of
courage wanted was not the kind that fights
battles, but the kind that conquers self. 1t
must be that persistent, yielding determine
ton, which says: "If 1 cannot reach it
can reach after it," Courage should not be
in word but in deed. He who loses wealth
loses money, but he who loses courage loses
all.
Honesty, he said, was not the kind of
honesty which prevented a man from steal
ing $40, 900 and skipping to Canada. It is
the kind that makes a man put in a few
minutes overtime, for which he is rewarded
by being taken into the firm. The other
employees who laid down their pens on the
stroke of the clock were the ones that kept
on in the same old rut.
A great many of the answers said the only
thing requisite to success was courtesy.
Courtesy was the small change of business
life, and without il commerce would go to
the wall. 1t is not the cars or engine
of a train, but it is the upholstery
of the cars. Without it there is jolt. One
correspondent replied it was not according
to nature to be courteous. You wake up to
the fact that you are lazy. You think that
there is lazy bone in your body. This is
incorrect. You were born so. Humanity
would rather freeze and starve than work.
One correspondent said there were three
great perils. One is the temptation to get
money. Another is the disorderly house
with its emptations to young men. An
other is the city which affords a chance for
wrong-doing without detection. Another
gives bad society as a peril, another deal
ing in margins, another Sabbath desecration,
another extravagant living, etc., etc. The
pastor read a letter from Andrew Carnegie,
in which the writer said the three tempta-
tions to be avoided were drinking liquor,
speculation and indorsing notes. Mr.. Car
negie stated that when he was telegraph
operator he knew all the men that specu-
lated. He has lived to see all of them
ruined. He said there was scarcely an
instance where a man made q fortune by
speculation, and kept it.