Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1893-07-20
|AT THE TABERNACLE.
DR.. TALMAGE FINDS MANY LESSONS
IN THE PREVAILING PANIC.

fhere Is Nothing Wrong In Desiring to BE
Rich, bat Like All Human Desires 1t
should he Rigidly Subjected to Gods
Law.
BROOKLYN, July 1G-Rev. DR. Talmace
has selected as his subject for today n topic
of the greatest interest and timeliness-viz,
"Comfort For business Men," the text be-
ing Isaiah 81, ., Speak We comfortably to
| Jerusalem
What an awful six weeks in commercial
circlesl The crashing of banks from san
francisco to New York and from ocean to
ocean The complete uncertainty that has
halted all styles of business for three
months and the pressure of the money
market for the last year have put all bar
gain makers at their wits end. Some of
the best men in the land have faltered men
whose hearts are enlisted in every good
work and whose hands have blessed every
| great charity. The church of God can af-
ford to extend TO them her sympathes
and plead before heaven with all availing
prayer. The schools such men have estab-
lished, the churches they have built, the
nsylums and beneficcnt institutions they
have fostered, will be their eulogy long
Ten. Such men can never fail. They have
their treasures in banks that never break
md will be millionaires forever.
Tho stringency of the money market, |
am glad TO say, begins to relax. May the
wisdom of Almighty God come down upon
bur national legislature at their converting
heNt month in Washington and such re-
suits be reached as shall restore confidence
and revive trade and multiply properties,
\ ct not only now in the time of financial
disaster, but all through life, our active
business people have struggle, and think
1t will be appropriate and useful for me to
talk about their trials and try 10 offer some
curative prescriptions.
TIE TEMPTED MERCHANT
In the first place, have to remark that n
great many of our business men feel ruin
Dus trials and temptations coming to them
from small and limited capital in business.
1t is everywhere understood that it takes
now three or four times as much to do
business well as once it did. Once IA few
hundred dollars were turned into goods
the merchant would be his own store
sweeper, his own salesman, his own book
Keeper. He would manage all the affairs
himself, and everything would be net
profit Wonderful changes have come.
eXorbitant store rents, heavy taxation. cy-
pensive agencies, are only parts of the de-
mand made upon our commercial men
And when they have found themselves in
such circumstances with small capital they
have sometimes been tempted to run
against the rocks of moral and financial
destruction
This temptation of limited capital has
ruined men in two ways. Sometimes they
have shrunlI down under the temptation.
They have yielded the battle before the
lrst shot was fired. At the first hard gun
they surrendered. Their knees knocked
together at the fall of the auctioneer's ham
mer. They blanched at the financial peril.
They did not understand that there is such
thing rs heroism in merchandise, and
that there are Waterloos of the counter
and that man can fight no drawer battle
with the sword than he can with the ward
stick
Their souls melted in them because sug-
ars were up when they wanted to buy
md down when they wanted to sell and
unstable goods were on the shelf and bad
debts III their ledger. The gloom of their
countenances ovcrshadowed even their dry
goods and groceries. Dependency, coming
from limited capital, blasted them. 9th
have said: Here | have been trudginp
along. | have been trying to be honest all
these years. find it is of no use. Now it
Is make or break"
The small craft that could have stood the
stream is put out beyond the lighthouse
OH the great sea Of speculation. Stocks
are the dice with which lie CANDLES. He
bought for few dollars vast tracts of west
trn land Some man at the east living on
TAT homestead meets this gambler of for
tune and Is persuaded to trade off his estate
mere Tor lots in u western city with large
avenues and costly palaces and lake steam
sIs smoking ut the wharves and rail trains
coming down with lightning speed from ev-
FRY direction. There it is all on paper! The
city has never been built nor the railroads
constructed but everything points that
way, and the thing will be done as sure as
you hive. And that is the process by which
many have been tempted through limita-
tlon OF capital into labyrinths from which
they could not be eXtricated.
would not want to chain honest enter
PRISE would not want to block up any
OF the avenues for honest accumulation
tndU open up Tor young men. On the con-
trary, lwould like to cheer them on and
rejoice when they reach the goal, but when
ruin for this life and the life that ia To
come through wrong notions of what are
lawful spheres of enterprise it is the duty
OF the ministers of religion and the friends
OF all young men to utter plain, emphat-
ic, unmistakabe protest. These are the
Influences that drown men in destruction
aud perdition.
THE EVERISH THIRST FOR GAIN
Again, a great many of our business men
are tempted to over anxiety and care. You
know that nearly all commercial businesses
are overdone in this day. Smittcn with
the love ofquick gain, our cities are crowded
with men resolved to be rich at all hazards.
They do not care how money comes Our
best merchants are thrown into COMPETE
ton with men Of more means and less con
science, and if an opportunity Of accumula-
ton be neglected one hour some one else
picks 1t up. From January to December
the struggle goes ON. Night gives no quiet
TO limbs tossing in restlcssness nor to
BRAIN that will not stop thinking. The
dreams are narrowed by imaginary loss and