Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1891-12-24
RELIGION IN BUSINESS.
bR. TALMA6E BELIEVES IN TRADE
AND IN HONEST TRADERS.

BROOKLYN, Dec. 20.-Any person seeking
the secret OF DR. Talmage's marvellous pop
uIarity with the millions OF sermon hear
ers and sermon readers may find clew to
it in the sermon he preached at the Taber-
nacle this morning 1t has nothing to do
with abstruse doctrines. but gives clear
view of what may be termed applied Chris
tianity His text was Proverbs iii, 6, I'm
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, y says
some business man; 'the law of supply
and demand controls the business world"
But have reason to say that it is prom
Use to all persons in any kind of honest
business.
There is no war between religion and
business, between ledgers and Bibles be-
tween churches and counting houses On
the contrary, religion accelerates business,
sharpens mems wits, sweetens acerbity of
disposition, fillips the blood of phlegmat
les and throws more velocity into the
wheels of hard work. It.gives better bal
ancing to the Judgment, more strength to
the will, more muscle to industry and
throws into enthusiasm a more consecrated
fire. You cannot in all the round Of the
world show me a man whose honest bust
ness has been despoiled by religion
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 flax
into apparel Traders, such as make profit
ont of the transfer and exchange of all that
which Is produced and manufactured.
business man may belong TO any one or all
of these classes. and not one is independent
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 il, 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 20 forth
into that battlefield, and Others blamed the
English government for accepting the
sacrifice, and Others blamed the Zulus for
their barbarism The one most TO blame
was tile harness maker who fashioned that
strap of the stirrup out of shoddy and inn
perfect 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 independent of harness maker.
High, low, wise, ignorant you in one
occupation, | in another, all bound to-
gether. So that there must be one contin-
nous line Of sympathy with each others
work. But whatever your vocation, II you
have multiplicity of engagements, if into
your life there come losses and annoyances
and perturbations as well rs percentages
and dividends, If you are pursued from
Monday morning until Saturday night, |
and from January to January by inexor-
able obligation and duty, then you are a
business man or you are a business wom-
an, and my subject is appropriate to your
case.
HIGH ENcoMIUM ON BUSINESS MEN.
We are under the impression that the |
MOL and tug of business life are prison |
into which man is thrust, or that it 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 | 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 IAN abstraction. Though never
about business men.
In my first parish at Belleville, New Jer-
sey, ten miles from New York, a large por-
tion of my audience was made up of New
York merchants. Then | went to SYRIA
cuse, o place Of intense commercial activi-
t5, and then | went to 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, Sab
bath by Sabbath, preaching to audiences,
the majority of whom are business men
and business women. 1t is not an abstrac-
ton to which | speak, but reality with
which am well acquainted.
In the first place, | remark that business
life was intended as a school of energy.
God gives us certain amount of raw ma
terial out of which we are to hew our char
acter. Our faculties are to be reset,
rounded and sharpened up. Our young
folks having graduated from school or col
lege, need higher education, that which
the rasping and collision of everyday life
alone can effect. Energy is wrought out
only in a fire. After a man has been ia
business activity ten, twenty. thirty years,
his energy is not to be 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. my brother. why did God put you
in that school of energyS Was it merely
that you might be a yardstick to measure
cloth or a steelyard to weigh fours Was
it merely that you might be better quail
fled to chatter and higgleS No. God placed
you in that school of energy that you
might be developed for Christian work. II
the undeveloped talents in the Christian
churches of today were brought out and
thoroughly harnessed, 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 sheaf
of every harvest. He demands the best
men of every generation. A cause in which
Newton and Locke and Mansfield toiled
you and can afford to toll in.
err