The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1893-07-19
WORDS OF COMFORT
Tor Business Men in Sermon by
Rev. DR.. Talmage.
The Recent Trials and Tribulations In Com
morcial Circles The Temptations
Which Constantly Besot Busi-
ness Men-A Timely Topic
Eloquently Discussed.

|
the text being Isaiah XII, 2: Speak ye
comfortably to Jerusalem" Following
Is the sermon:
What an awful six weeks in coramer-
cial circles! 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 bargain makers
at their wits end. Some Of the best
men in the land have faltered; men
whose hearts are enlisted in good
work, and whose hands have blessed
every great charity. Tho church OF
God can afford TO extend to them her
sympathies, and plead before heaven
with all availing prayer. The schools
such men have established, the
churches they have built, the asylums
and beneficent institutions they have
fostered, will be their eulogy long after
their banking institutions are forgot
ten. Such men can never fail. They |
have their treasures in banks that
never break, and will be millionaires
forever. The stringency Of the money |
market, I am glad to say, begins tc
relax. May the wisdom Of Almighty
God come down upon our national leg
islature at their convening next month
in Washington, and such results be
reached as shall restore confidence,
and revive trade, and multiply prosper
itiesi Yet, not only now in the time
Of financial disaster, but all through
life our active business people have a
struggle, and think 1t will be appro-
pirate and useful for me to talk about
their trials and try to offer some cur.
ative prescriptions.
In the first place, have to remark
that great many Of our business men
feel runious trials and temptations
coming to them from small and limited
capital in business. 1t is everywhere
understood that it now takes three or
four times as much TO do busines well
as once it did. Once a few hundred
dollars were turned into goods-the
merchant would be his own store
sweeper, his own salesman, his own
bookkeeper; he would manage all the
affairs himself, and everything would
be net profit. Wonderful changes have
come; costly apparatus, extensive ad-
yertising, exorbitant store rents, heavy
taxation, expensive agencies, are only
parts of the demand 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 shrunk down under the
temptation. They have yielded the
battle before the first shot was fired.
At the first hard gun they surrendered.
Their knees knocked together at the
fall of the auctioneer's hammer.
They blanched at the financial
peril. They did not understand that
there is such a thing as heroism
in m rchandise, and that there are
Waterloos Of the counter, and that a
man can fight no braver battle with
the sword than he can with the yard
stick. Their souls melted in them be-
cause sugars were up when they wanted
TO buy and down when they wanted TO
sell, and unsaleable goods were on the
shelf, and bad debts in their ledger.
The gloom of their countenances over
shadowed even their dry goods and gro
ceries. Dependency, coming from linn
tied capital. blasted them. Others haze
felt IL In different way. They have
said: '"Here / have been trying to be
honest all these years. find 1t Is OF
no use. Now IL Is make or break" The
small craft that could have stood the
stream, is put out beyond the light
house, on the great sea of speculation
Stocks are the dice with which he gam
bles. He bought for n few dollars vast
tracts OF western land. Some man a.
the east living on a fat homestead
meets this gambler of fortune and Il
persuaded TO trade off his estate here
for lots in a western city with lnrg,
avenues, and costly palaces, and lak'
steamers smoking at the wharves, anC
rail trains coming down with lightning
speed from every direction. There 1
is all on paperl The city has never beer
built, nor the railroads constructed
but everything points that way, and tn,
thing will be done as sure as you live
And that is the process by which man!
have been tempted, through limitation
of capital. into labyrinths from which
they could not be extricated. | woult
not want to chain honest enterprise.
would not want to block any Of tn,
avenues for honest accumulation tina
open before young men. On the con
trary, / would like to cheer them o.
and rejoice when they reach th
goal; but when there are such multi
tudes OF men going to ruin for this lif
and the life that is to come, throug
wrong notions of what are lawfu
spheres of enterprise, 1t Is the duty c
the ministers of religion, and tn
friends of all young men, TO utter
plain, emphatic, unmistakable protes
These are the influences that drow
men in destruction and perdition.
Again, great many Of our bushes
men are tempted to over-anxiety an
care. You know that nearly all con
mercial businesses are overdone in tn
day. Smitten with the love Of quic
gain, our cities are crowded with me
resolved TO be rich at all hazaSas The
\. do not care how money come Or
best merchants are ttrown into co ap