The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1892-01-01

first tierce of rice, or their first firl6in OF
butter, because their honesty and in
tegrity have been tested, tried and came
out triumphant. But they remember
time when they could have robbed D
partner, or have absconded with tn :
funds of a bank, or sprung a snap
Judgment, or made a false assign
ment, or borrowed illimitabiy with
out any effort at payment. or got a
man into a sharp corner and fleeced
him. But they never took one step on
that pathway of hell fire. They can
say their prayers without hearing the
chink of dishonest dollars. They car
read their Bib 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 with
out any fiinching-that day when all
charlatans and choats and jockeys and
frauds shall be doubly damned. 1t
does not make their knees knock to-
gether, and it dees 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"
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 Weakened up, in some embarrass-
ment, and said: "Now, I'll step a 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 tremendous school,
business life, a school of integrity. A
merchant in Liverpool got five-pound
bank of England note, and, holding it
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 a slave of the hey of Algiers"
| The merchant sent word, employed gov
eminent 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 to
the hey of Algiers. He was immedi-
ately emancipated. but was so worn
out by hardship and exposure he soon
after died.
As l go ON in this subject, am i'm
pressed with the impo rtance of our
having more sympathy with business
men. Is it not shame that we in our
pulpits do not often preach about their
struggles, their trials and their tempta-
tons? Men who toll with their hands
are not to be very sympathetic with
| those who toll with their brain. The
| farmers who raise the corn, and the
oats, and the wheat. sometimes are
| tempted to think that grain mer-
chants have an easy time, and get
their profits without giving any equiva-
lent Plato and Aristotle were so OPP
posed to merchandise that they de-
clared commerce to be the curse of the
nations, and they advised that cities be
| built at least ten miles from the sea
coast. But you and know that there
are no more industrious or high-minded
men than those who move in the world
of traffic. Some of them carry burdens
Eheavier than hods of brick, and are ex-
posed 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:
''Well done, good and faithful servant;
thou hast been faithful over few
things, / will make thee ruler over
many things. Enter thou into the Joy
of the Lord"
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 previously; but
now we see it was for the : best
Business life is a school, and
the tasks are hard, and the
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 we've
cheated out of every thing but their cof-
fin. They were sued, they were i'm
prisoned for debt they were throttled
by constables with whole pack of
writs, they were sold out by the sher-
ifs, they had no compromise with their
creditors, they had to make assign
ments Their dying hours were an
noyed by the sharp ringing of the door,
bell by some impetuous creditor who
thought it was outrageous and i'm
pudent that a man should dare to die
before he paid the last three shillings
and six pence. had a friend
who had many misfortunes- Every
thing 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 sometime
seen, for whom everything seems to go
wrong. His life became to him a
plague. When heard he was dead I
said: GOOD, got rid of the sheriffsp
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 brsinesc
trouble and had their robes washed
and made white in the blood of the