The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1891-12-25
THETABERNACLEPULPlT
BUSINESS LIFE A SCHOOL FOR GOOD
TO THOSE WHO so WILL IT.


lions of Trade-How the Dishonesty Of
Ono Man May Destroy Others-How
Business Men May he Improved.
BROOKLYN, Dec. 20.-Any person
seeking the secret of DR.. Talmage's
marvellous popularity with the millions
bf sermon hearers and sermon readers
may find a clew to it in the sermon he
preached at the Tabernacle this morn
ing. 1t has nothing to do with alb
Btruse doctrines, but gives clear view
OF what may be termed applied Chris,
tanity. His text was Proverbs Iii, 6,
'In all thy ways acknowledge him and
be shall direct thy paths"
"a promise good 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 business.
There is no war between religion and
business, between ledgers and Bibles,
between churches and counting houses
On the contrary, religion accelerates
business sharpens mems wits, sweetens
acerbity of disposition, fillips the blood
of phlegmatics and throws more veloc-
ity into the wheels of hard work. It
gives better balancing to the judgment,
more strength to the will, more muscle
to industry and throws into enthusiasm
q more concentrated fire. You cannot
In all the round of the world show me
q man whose honest business has been
despoiled by religion.
The industrial classes are divided into
three groups-producers, manufacture
ers, traders. Producers, such as farmers
and miners. Manufacturers, such as
those who turn corn into food, and
wool and flax into apparel. Traders,
such as make profit out of the transfer
and exchange of all that which is pro-
duced and manufactured. A business
man may belong to any one or all of
these classes, and not one is independ-
emit of any other.
When the prince imperial of France
fell on the Zulu battlefield because
the strap fastening the stirrup to the
saddle broke as he chung to it, his
comrades all escaping, but he falling
under the lances of the savages, great
many people blamed the empress for
allowing her son to go forth into that
battlefield, and others blamed the Eng
lish government for accepting the sacri-
fee, and others blamed the Zulus for
their barbarism. The one most to
blame was the harness maker who
fashioned that strap of the stirrup out
of shoddy and imperfect material, as it
was found to have been afterward. If
the strap had held, the prince imperial
would probably have been alive today.
But the strap broke. No prince indie
pendent of harness maker!
High, low, wise, ignorant, you in one
Z .<oonpaAion, in another, all bound to-
eether. SO that there must be one con-
tinuops line of sympathy with each
others work. But whatever your vo-
cation, if you have multiplicity of en-
gagements, if into your life there come
losses and annoyances and perturba-
ions as well as percentages and divi-
dends, if you are pursued from Monday
morning until Saturday night, and
from January to January by inexora-
bic obligation and duty, then you are
. business man or you are a business
woman, and my subject is appropriate
to your case.
We are under the impression that the
tmol and tug of business life are prison
into which a man is thrust or that it is
IN unequal strife where unarmed a man
goes forth to contend. I shall show
you that business life was intended of
God for grand and glorious education
and discipline, and if shall be helped
10 say what want to say, shall rub
some of the wrinkles of care out of
your brow and unstrap some of the
burdens from your back. am not
talking to an abstraction. Though
never having been in business life, l
know all about business men.
In my first parish at Bellville, New
jersey, ten miles from New York, a
large portion of my audience was made
up of New York merchants. Then I
went to Syracuse, a place of intense
commercial activity, and then I went
70 Philadelphia and lived long among
the merchants of that city, than whom
there are no better men on earth, and
for more than twenty-five years have
stood in this presence, Sabbath by Sab
bath, preaching to audiences, the ma
joeity of whom are business men and
business women It is not an abstrac-
ton to which speak, but a reality
With which l am well acquainted.
THE CULTIVATION OF ENERGY.
In the first place, l remark that bust
ness life was intended as aschool of en-
mgy. God gives us certain amount
OF raw material out of which we are to
lhew our character. Our faculties are
10 be reset, rounded and sharpened up.
Our young folks having graduated
from school or college need higher