Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-12-21
BUSINESS A SCHOOL.
Energy, Patience and Integrity
Taught to Willing Students.
ALL KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE, ALSO.
The Honesty of No Man Is Known Until It
Is Tested by Trust.
TRAFFIC is NOT THE END OF IT ALL


TODAY was Proverbs iii:6, SIN all thy ways
acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy
paths"
"a promise, coed enough for many kinds
of life, but not for my kind of life, says
some business man, ''the law of supply and
demand controls the business world" But
/ have reason to say that it is promise
to all persons in any kind of honest busi-
ness.
There is no war between religion and
business, between ledgers and Bible, be-
tween churches and counting houses. On
the contrary, religion accelerates business,
tharpens mems wits, sweetens acerbity OF
disposition, fllips the blood of phlegmatics,
and throws more velocity into the wheels
of hard work 1t gives better balancing to
the Judgment, more strength to the will,
more muscle to industry, and throws into
enthusiasm more consecrated fire. You
cannot in all the round of the world show
me man whose honest business has been
despoiled by religion.
The Three Industrial Glasses.
The industrial classes are divided into
three groups: producers, manufacturers,
traders Producers, such as farmers and
miners. Manufacturers, such as those who
turn corn into food and wool and fax into
apparel Traders, such as make profit out
of the transfer and exchange of all that
which is produced and manufactured.
A business man NAV belong TO any one or
all of these classes, and not one is indepen-
dent of any other. When the Prince In
perial of France fell on the Zulu battle
field because the strap fastening the stirrup
to the saddle broke as he clUng to it, his
comrades all escaping, but he falling under
the lances of the savages, a great many
people blamed the Empress for allowing
her son to 60 forth into that battlefield, and
others blamed the English Government for
accerting the sacrifice, and others blamed
the Zulus for their barbarism.
The one most to blame was the harness
maker who fashioned that strap of the stir
rup ont of shoddy and imperfect material as
ii was found to have been afterward. If the
strap had held, the Prince Imperial would
probably have been alive to-day. But the
strap broke. No prince independent Of
harness-maker! High, low, wise, ignorant,
YOU in one occupation, 1 in another, all
bound together. So that there must be one
continuous line of sympathy with each
others work
A Sermon to Business Men.
But whatever your vocation, if you have
a multiplicity of engagements if into your
life there come losses and annovances and
perturbations as well as percentages and
dividends, il YOU are pursued from Monday
morning until Saturday night, and from
January to January by inexorable obliga-
tion and duty, then you are a business man,
or you are a business woman, and my sub
.iect is appropriate to your case.
We are under the impression that the
MOL and tug of business life are prison
into which a man is thrust, or that 1t is an
unequal strife where unarmed man goes
forth to contend. ] shall show you that
business life was intended of God for grand
and glorious education and discipline and
if shall be helped to say what 1 want to
say, [ shall rub some of the wrinkles of care
ont of your brow, and unstrap some of the
burdens from YOUR back.
I am not talking to an abstraction. Though
never having been in business life l know
all about business men. In nv first parish
at Belleviile, \. J., ten miles from New
York, a large portion of my audience was
made up of New York merchants. Then |
went TO Syracuse, place of intense COM
mercial activity, and then I went to Phila-
delphia, and lived long among the merchants
Of that city, and whom there are no better
men on earth.
Quarter of a Century at Brooklyn.
For more than % years 1 have stood in
this presence, Sabbath by Sabbath, preach
ing to audiences, the majority OF whom are
business men and business women. 1t is
not an abstraction to which | speak, but
reality with which am we'll acquainted.
In the first place, | remark that business
life was intended as school of energy. God
,,,1
OUT Of which we are to hew our character
Our faculties are to be reset, rounded and
sharpened up. Our young folks having
graduated from school or college need a
higher education, that which the rasping
and collision of everyday life alone can
effect. Energy is wrought out only in
fire. After man has been in business ac-
tivity 10, 20, so years his energy is not to
he measured by weights or plummets or
ladders There is no height it cannot scale,
and there is no depth it cannot fathom, and
there is no obstacle it cannot thrash.
Now. nv brother, why did God put you
in that school of energy? Was it merely
that YOU might he yardstick to measure
cloth, or steelvard to weigh flour? Was
it merely that vou might be better qualified
to chatter and higgle? No. God placed
you in that school of energy that you might
be developed for Christian work.
What United Christianity Could Do.
IF the undeve1oped talents in the Chris
tian churches of to-day were brought out
and thoroughly harnessed, L believe the
whole world would be converted to God in
short time. There are SO many deep
streams that are turning no mill wheels and
that are harnessed to no factory bands.
Now, God demands the best lamb out of
every flock. He demands the richest sheat
of every harvest. He demands the best
men of every generation. A cause in which
Newton and Locke and Mansfield toiled
you and I can afford to toll in.
Oh, for fewer idlers in the cause of
Christ. and for more Christian workers,
men who shall take the same energy that
from Monday morning to Saturday night
they put forth for the achievement of a
livelihood or the gathering of fortune,
and on Sabbath days put it forth to the
advantage of Christ's kingdom and the
bringing of mer to the Lord. DR.. Duff, in
South Wales, saw man who had inherited
a great fortune. The man said to him: 81
had to b.: very busy for MANY years of my
life getting my livelihood. After while this
fortune came to me, and there has been no
necessity that toll since.
There came time when I said to myself,
Shall | now retire from business, or shall |
go on and serve the Lord in nv worldly
occupatioR?' He said: 81 resolved on
the latter, and l have been more industrious
in commercial circles than I ever was
before, and since that hour L have never
kept farthing for myself"
Toiling for the Lord Now
'T have thought it to be great shame if
] couldn't toll as hard for myself, and all
the products of my factories and my COM