The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1892-01-07
REV. DIR. IALMAGE.
TIE BRooKLYN DIvINE's SUM-
DAY SERMON
Subject: -aReligion and Business

TEXT: an oil thy tcags acknowledge
Him and He shall direct thy path" -
Proverbs iii, 9.
"a promise good enough for many kinds
OF life. but not for my kind of lite" 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 bust
ness, between ledgers and Bibles, between
churches and counting houses On the con-
trary religion accelerates business. sharpens
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 a moro
consecrated fire. You cannot in all the round
of the world show me man whose honest
business has been des 7oiled 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 fax into
apparel. Traders, such as make profit out
or the transfer and exchange of all that
which is produced and manufactured. A
business man may belong to any one or all
OF any other.
When the prince imperial of France fell on
the Zulu battlefield because the strap fasten-
ing the stirrup to the saddle broke as he
chung to it, his comrades all escaping, hut he
falling under the lances of the savages, q
great many people blamed the empress for
allowing her son to go forth into that battle
field, and others blamed the English Govern
ment for accepting 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 stirrup out
of shoddy and imperfect material, as it was
found to have been afterward. Ii 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, l in another, all bound together.
So that there must be one continuous line of
sympathy with each others work. But
whatever your vocation, il you have a
multiplicity of engagements, if into your
life there come losses and annoyances and
perturbations as well as percentages and
dividends, If you are pursued from Monday
morning until Saturday night, and from
January to January by inexorable obliga-
ton and duty, then you are business man
or you are a business woman, and my SUBJ
ject is appropriate to your case.
We are under the impression that the MOL
and tug Of business life are a prison into
which man is thrust, or that it is an I'M
equal strife where unarmed a man goes forth
to contend. l shall show you that business
life was intended of God for grand and glori-
GUS education and discipline, and if / shall be
helped to say what | want to say, shall rub
some of the wrinkles OF care ont of your
brow and unstrap some Of the burdens from
your back. am not talking to an abstrac-
ton. Though never have been in business
life, know all about business men.
In my first parish at Belleville, New Jer-
sey, ten miles from New York, large por-
ton of my audience was made up of New
York merchants. Then went to Syracuse
place of intense commercial activity, and
then I went to Philadelphia and lived long
among the merchants of that city, than
wnom there are no better mon on earth, and
for more than twenty-five years l have
stood in this presence, Sabbath by Sabbath,
preaching to audiences, the majority of
It is Rot an hs f5 p which bia spssf 6Gt
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 ara 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 lite alone can eff
feet. Energy is wrought out only in fire.
After man has been in 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 energy? Was it merely that
you might be a yardstick to measure cloth
oro taai r1 70 io,h
that you might be better qualified to chatter
and higgle? No. God placed you in that
school OF energy that you might be devel-
oped for Christian work. Ii the undev eloped
talents IN the Christian churches Of to-day
were brought out and thoroughly harnessod,
/ believe the whole world would be converted
to God in a 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 man OF every
generation. A cause in which Newton and
Locke and Mansfield toiled you and [ can
afford to toll in.
Oh, for fewer oilers in the cause Of Christ
and for more Christian workers-men who
shall take the same energy that from Mon
day morning to Saturday night they put
forth for the achievement of livelihood or
the gathering of fortune, and on Sabbath
days put it forth to the advantage of Christ's
kingdom and the bringing of men to the
Lord. Dr.. Duff, in South Wales, saw a man
who had inherited great fortune. The man
said to HIM: 81 had to be very busy for
many years of my life getting my livelihood.
After awhile my fortune came to me, and
there has been no necessity that toll since.
There came time when l said to myself.
Shall now retire from business, or shall l
go on and serve the Lord in my worldly occu-
pation?" He said: II resolved on the latter,
and have been more industrious in COM
mercial circles than l ever was before, and
since that hour have never kept farthing
for myself. Ihave thought it to be great
shame if couldn't toll as hard for the Lord
as had toiled for myself, and all the pro-
ducts of my factories and my commercial
establishments to the last farthing have gone
for the building of Christian institutions and
supporting the church of God" Oh, if the
same energy put forth for the world could
be put forth for God Oh, if thousand
men in these great cities who have achieved
a fortune could see it their duty to do all
business for Christ and the alienation of the
worlds suffering.
Again, remark, that business life is a
school of patience. In your everyday life
how many things to annoy and to disquiet!
Bargains will rub. Commercial men will