The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1892-01-07

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have gentle behavior now for unmannerly
customers. They are patient now with I'M
| fortunate debtors. They have Christian re-
| Elections now for sudden reverses. Where
! did they get that patiences By hearing a
! minister preach concerning 1t on Saooatn!
| Oh, no. They got it just where you will get
| tiff you ever get it at all-selling hats, dis
counting notes turning banisters, blowing
corn, timing roofs, pleading causes. Oh,
that amid the turmoil and anxiety and ex-
ASPIRATION of everyday life you might hear
the voice of God saying: 'lu patience
possess your soul. Let patience have her
perfect work"
remark again that business life is a school
of useful knowledge. Merchants do notread
many books and do not study lexicons. They
do not dive into profounds of learning, and
yet nearly all through their occupations come
to understand questions of finance and poll
tics and geography and Jurisprudence and
ethics. Business is severe schoolmistress.
Ii pupils will not learn, she strikes them over
the head and the heart with severe losses.
You put 5000 into an enterprise. 1t is all
gone. You say, That is a dead loss" Oh,
no. You are paying the schooling. That
was only tuition, very large tuitlon-l told
you it was a severe schoolmistress-but it
was worth it, You learned things under that
process you would not have learned in any
other way.
Traders in grain come to know som ething
about foreig IN narvests; traders in fruit come
to know something about the prospects of
tropical production; manufacturers OF
American goods come to understand the
tariff on imported articles; pu olishers OF
books must come to understand the new law
of copyright; owners OF ships must come to
know winds and shoals and navigation; AMI
every bale of cotton, and every raisin casG,
and every tea box, aud every cluster OF
bananas is SO muc literature for a business
man. Now, my brother, what are you 60
ing to do with tae inteligence? Do you sup
pose God put you in this scnool of informa-
ton merely that you might be sharper III
trade that you might be more successful as
a wording? On, no; it was that you might
take that useful information and use 1t for
Jesus Christ.
Can it be that you have been dealing with
foreign lands and never had the missionary
spirit, wishing the salvation OF foreign peo-
ples Can it be that you have become &C
quainted with all the outrages inflicted in
business life and that you have never tried
to bring to bear that Gospel which is to ex-
tripate all evil and correct all wrongs aud
illumine all darkness and lift up all wretch
edness and save men for this world and the
world to come? Can it be that understand
ing all the intricacies of business you know
nothing about those things which will last
long after all bills of exchange and. conslgn-
ments and invoices and rent rolls shall have
crumpled up and been consumed in the fires
of the last great day? Can it be that man
will be wise for time and fool for eternity?
l remark, also, that business life is a
school for integrity. No man knows what
he will do when he is tempted There are
thousands of men who have kept their In
tegrity merely because they never have been
tested. A man was elected treasurer of the
State of Maine some years ago. He was dis
for.
uprightness but before one year had passed
he had taken of the public funds for his own
private use and was hurled out OF Office III
disgrace Distinguished for virtue before.
Distinguished for crime after. lou can call
over the names OF men just like that, IN
whose honesty you had complete confidence,
but placed in certain crises oil temptation
they went overheard.
Never so many temptations to scoundrel-
ism as now. Not law on the statute book
but has some back door through which
miscreant can escape. All! how many de-
captions in the fabric of goods; SO much
plundering in commercial life, that If man
talk about living life OF complete COM
%eFfs It u ef shsrs are ana 6h2s e we2
tact. More need of honesty now than ever
before-tried honesty, complete honesty, |
more than in those times when business was |
a plain affair, and wooens were woolens |
How many men do you suppose there are
in commercial life who could say truthfully, |
"ln all the sales | have ever made | have
never oyerstated the value OF goojs; in all |
the sales have ever made nag. never
covered up an imperfection in the IL ric; of
all the thousands OF dollars [ have ever
made | have not taken one dishonest far
thing" There are men, however, who can
say it-hundreds who can say it, thousands
who can say it. They are more honest than
when they sold their first tierce of rice, or
their first firkip of butter because
their honesty and integrity have been
tested, tried and carried out triumph
ant. But they remember a time when
they could have robbed a part
of bank, or sprung snap
Judgment, or made false as
signment, or borrowed illimitaby
wthoutany effort at payment or got man
into sharp corner and feeced him. But
they never took one step on that pathway
of hell-ire. They can say their prayers
without hearing the ciinS of dishonest dol
lars. They can read their Bible without
thinking OF the time when with lie on their |
soul in the custom house they kissed the |
Book. They can think of death and the |
Judgment that comes after it without any |
hinching-that day when all charlatans and |
cheats and jockeys and frauds shall be
uOuOly uauneu. III uOSS nOU MAKE Cueir |
knees knock together and it does not make |
their teeth chatter to read 'as the partridge |
sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not, so
he that getteth riches, and not by right,
shall leave them in the midst Of his days
and at his end shall be fool.n
Oh, what a school of integrity busnesslife
isl II you have ever been tempted TO let
your integrity cringe before present advan-
tage; il you have ever Weakened up in some
embarrassment and said: NOW I'll step
little aside from the right path and no one
will know it, and Pll come all right again.
1t 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
tremendous school, business life-a school of
integrity. A merchant in Liverpool got
five pound Bank of England note, and hold
ing 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, who
ever gets this bank note will please to inform
my brother, John Dean, living near Carlisle,
that l am a 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