News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1891-12-24


so he that getteth riches and not by
right shall leave them in the midst of
Lis days, and at his end shall be a
fool"
THE SLAVE IN ALGIERS.
Oh, what school of integrity bust
ness life isl If you have ever been
tempted to let your integrity cringe be
fore present advantage, if you have
ever wakened up in some embarrass-
ment and said, Now, I'll step little
aside from the right path and no one
will know it, and I'll come all right
again; it is only once" Oh, that only
once has ruined tens of thousands of
men for this life and blasted their souls
| for eternity. 1t is a tremendous school,
business life. a school of integrity. A
merchant in Liverpool got five pound
Bank of England note, and holding it
up toward the light he saw some inter
lineations in what seemed red ink.
He finally deciphered the letters and
found out that the writing had been
made by slave in Algiers, saying in
substance, whoever gets this bank
note will please to inform my brother,
John Dean, living near Carlisle, that |
am slave of the hey of Algiers." The
merchant sent word, employed govern
ment officers and found who this man
was spoken of in this bank bill. After
awhile the man was rescued, who for
| eleven years had been a slave of the
AL,
| emancipated, but was SO worn out by
hardship and exposure he soon after
| died Oh, if some of the bank bills
that come through your hands could
tell all the scenes through which they
! have passed, it would be a tragedy
eclipsing any drama of Shakespeare,
mightier than King Lear or Macbeth.
As | go on in this subject | am i'm
pressed with the importance of our
having more sympathy with business
men, Is it not a shame that we in our
| pnlpits do not oftener preach about
| their struggles, their trials and their
| temptations? Men who toll with the
| hand are not apt to be very sympathetic
with those who toll with the brain.
| The farmers who raise the corn, and
the oats, and the wheat sometimes are
tempted to think that grain merchants
have an easy time and get their profits
without giving any equivalent.
Plato and Aristotle were so opposed
to merchandise that they declared COM
merce to be the curse of the nations, and
! they advised that cities be built at least
| ten miles from the seacoast. But you
aud | know that there are no more in
dustrious or high minded men than
those who move in the world of traffic.
| Some of them carry burdens heavier
| than hods of brick, and are exposed to
sharper things than the east wind, and
climb mountains higher than the Alps
or Himalayas, and if they are faithful
Christ will at last say to them: We'll
done, good and faithful servant; thou
hast been faithful over a few things,
will make thee ruler over many things.
Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord"
THE MARTY RS OF BUSINESS.
We talk about the martyrs of the
Piedmont valley, and the martyrs
among the Scotch highlands, and the
martyrs at Oxford. There are just as
certainly martyrs of Wall street and
State street, martyrs of Fulton street
and Broadway, martyrs of Atlantic
street and Chestnut street, going
through hotter fires, or having their
necks under sharper axes. Then it be-
hooves us to Danish all fretfulness from
our lives if this subject be true. We
look back to the time when we were at
! school, and we remember the rod and
we remember the hard tasks and we
complained grievously, but now we see
it was for the best.
Business life is a school, and the tasks
are hard, and the Establishments some
times are very grievOus; but do not
complain. The hotter the fire the better
the refining. There are men before the
throne of God this day in triumph who
on earth were cheated out of everything
but their coffin. They were sued, they
were imprisoned for debt, they were
throttled by constables with q whole
pack of writs, they were sold out by
the sheriffs, they had no compromise
with their creditors, they had to make
assignments. Their dying hours were
annoyed by the sharp ringing of the
doorbell by some impetuous creditor
who thought it was outrageous and i'm
pudent that q man should dare to die
before he paid the last three shillings
and sixpence.
l had a friend who had many mis-
fortunes. Everything went against
him. He had good business quality
and was of the best of morals, but he
was one OF those men, such as you have
sometimes seen, for whom everything
seems to go wrong. His life became to
him plague. When l heard he was
dead, | said, Good, got rid of the
sheriffsw Who are those lustrous souls
before the throne? When the question
is asked, ''Who are they" the angels
standing on the sea of glass respond,
'"These are they who came out of great
business trouble and had their robes
washed and made white in the blood
of the Lamb"
A man arose in Fulton street prayer
meeting, and said: 81 wish publicly to
acknowledge the goodness of God.
was in business trouble. | had money
to pay, and | had no means to pay it,
and | was in utter despair of all human
help, and | laid this matter before the
Lord, and this morning | went down
among some old business friends | had
not seen in many years, just to make
call, and one said to me, why, | am SO
glad to see you, walk in. We have
some money on our books due you a
good while, but we didn't know where
you were, and therefore not having
your address we could not send it. We
are very glad you have GOMEZ" And
the man standing in Fulton street
prayer meeting said, 1.-THE amount
they paid me was six times what
owed" You say it only happened so?
You are an infidel. God answered that
mans prayer. Oh, you want business
grace.
Commercial ethics, business honors,
laws of trade, are all very good in their
place, but there are times when you
want something more than this world
will give you. You want God For
the lack of him some that you have
known have consented to forge, and to
maltreat their friends, and to curse
their enemies, and their names have
hY,l i