The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1892-01-06
THE BATTLE OF LIFE.
A Practical Sermon by Rev. T
Dewitt Talmage.
Trials and Tribulations of business Life
God Intended 1t for Grand and GIori-
Gus Education and Discipline-A
school for Integrity and Pa
thence.

ways acknowledge Him and He shall
direct thy paths" The eloquent divine
spoke as follows:
"a promise is good enough for many
kinds of life, but not for my kind of
life" says some business man; 1.-The law
of supply and demand controls the bust
ness 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 contingencies.
On the contrary, religion accelerates
business sharpens mems wits, sweet
ems acerbiiy of disposition, fiillips the
blood of phlegmatics, and throws more
velocity into the wheels of hard work.
1t gives better balancing to the judg-
ment, more strength to the will, more
muscle to industry, and throws into en-
thusiasm a more consecrated fire. You
can not in all the round of the World
show me man whose honest business
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 fax into apparel. Traders, such as
make profit out of the transfer and ex-
change of all that which is produced
and manufactured A 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 battle field
because the strap fastening the stirrup
to the saddle broke as he chung to it,
his comrades all escaping, but he fall
| ing under the lances of the savages, a
great many people blamed the empress
for allowing her son to go forth into
that battle field, and others blamed the
English government for accepting the
sacrifice, and others blamed the Zulus
for their barbarism The one most to
blame was the harnessma!ser who fash
Toned 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 to-day.
But the strap broke. No prince inde-
pendent of a harnessmaker! High, low,
wise, ignorant, you in one occupation, !
in another. all bound together. So that
there must be one continuous line OF
sympathy with each others work. But
whatever your vocation, if you have a
multiplicity of engagements, if into
your life there comes losses and annoy
ances and perturbations as we'll as per
centages and dividends, if you are pur.
sued from Monday morning until Sat
urday night, and from January to Jan
uary by memorable obligation and duty,
then you are business man, or you are
business woman, and my subject is
appropriate to your case.
We are under the impression that the
turmoil and tug of business life are 6
prison into which man is thrust, Oh
that it is an unequal strife where UNI
armed a man goes forth to contend.
shall show you that business life wa.
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 car,
out of your brow, and unstrap some o
the burdens from your back. am no
talking to an abstraction. Though
never having been in business life,
know all about business men. In IN,
first parish at Belleville, New Jersey
ten miles from New York, large por
ton of my audience was made up O
New York merchants. Then went T.
Syracuse, place of intense commercial
activity, and then went to Philadel
phia, and lived long among the mel
chants of that city, than whom ther
are no better men on earth, and TO
more than twenty-five years l hav
l stood in this presence, Sabbath by Sal
bath, preaching to audiences, the ms
jority of whom are business men an
business women. 1t is not an abstractio
20 which l speak, but reality wit
which am well acquainted.
, In the first place, | remark that bus
ness life was intended as a school G
, energy. God gives us certain amour
of raw material out of which we are I
hew our character Our faculties ar
to be reset, rounded and sharpened u,
Our young folks, having graduate
from school or college, need a highe
education, that which the rasping an
collision of everyday life alone ca
effect. Energy is wrought out ouly
: n fire. After man has been in bus
ness activity ten, twenty, thirty year
his energy is not to be measured b
g weights or plummets or ladders Thel
: is no height it can not scale, and thel
a is no depth it can not fathom, and thel
is no obstacle it can not thrash.
r Now, my brother, why did God p,
/. you in that school of energy? Was
/. merely that you might be a yardstic
:. to measure cloth, or steelyard
A weigh flour? Vas it merely that yc
n might DO letter qualified to chatter ar
q higgle? No. God placed you in tn
school of energy that you might be d
e velopcd for Christian work. If the u
G developed talents in the Christi;
churches of to-day were brought o
and thoroughly harnessed, l belize
i, the whole world would be converted
. God in short time. There are so maj
: deep streams that are turning no mi
wheels and that are harnessed to
9 factory bands. Now, God demands Il
!. best lamb ont of every flock. He
. mands the richest sheaf of every ha
y vest lie demands the best men
r every generation. A cause in viii
Newtn,n and Locke and Mnnsfie