The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1893-08-02
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S sun
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Comfort for Business Men,

Subject: sComfort for Business Men. -
{ TEXT: "Speak ye comfortably to Jerusa-
lem."-Isaiah Xl., 2.
What an awful six weeks In commercial
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 every good work and
whose hands have blessed every great
charity. The church of God can afford to
lextend to them her sympathies and plead be-
fore heaven with all availing prayer. The
schools such men have established, the
lehurches they have built, the asylums and
benefcent institutions they have fostered,
will be their eulogy long after their banking
institutions are forgotten.
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
to relax. May the wisdom Of Almighty God
come down upon our National Legislature at
their convening next month In Washington
and such results be reached as shall restore
confidence and revive trade and multiply
prosperities! Yet not only now In the time
Of financial disaster, but all through life, our
active business people have struggle, and
think it will be- appropriate and useful for
me to talk about their trials and try to otter
Bome curative prescriptions.
In the first place, I have to remark that q
great many of our business men feel ruinous
trials and temptations coming to them from
49, tn1 oniko al In h,op ID
everywhere understood that 1t takes now
three or four times as much to do business
well as once 1t did. Once few hundred dol
liars 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 every
thing would be net profit. Wonderful
changes have come. Costly apparatus, ex-
tensive advertising, e5orbitanr store rents,
heavy taxtation, 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 temptedto
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 fred. 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
mot understand that there Is such thing
heroism in merchandise, and that there are
fWaterloos of the counter, and that man
can fight no braver battle with the sword than
he can with the yardstick.
Their souls melted in them because sugars
were up when they wanted to buy and down
when they wanted to sell and unstable
goods were on the shelf and bad debts in
their ledger. The gloom Of their counte-
Inances overshadowed even their dry goods
iand groceries. Dependency, coming from
limited capital. blasted them. Others have
felt it in q different way. They have said =
!s'Here have been trudging along. I have
been trying to be honest all these years.
lind 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 on
the great sea Of speculation. Stocks are the
dice with which he CANDLES. He bought for
2 few dollars vast tracts OF western land.
Some man at the east living on fat home
stead meets this gambler of fortune and Is
persuaded to trade of his estate here for lots
In western city with large avenues and
costly palaces and lake steamers smoking at
the wharves and rail trains coming down
with lightning speed from every 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 live. And that
Is the process by which many have been
tempted through limitation OF capital into
aabyrinths from which they could not be ex-
tricated.
, would not want to chain honest enter
prise. would not want to block up any of
the avenues for honest accumulation that
open before young men. On the contrary,
would like to cheer them on and rejoice
when they reach the goal, but when thereare
such multitudes Of men going to ruin for
this life and the life that Is to come through
wrong notions OF what are lawful spheres Of
enterprise It is the duty OF ministers Of re-
hgion and the friends Of all young men to
utter plain, emphatic. unmistakable pro-
test. These are the influences that drown
men in destruction and perdition.
Again, great many Of our business men
are tempted to over-anxiety and care. You
know that nearly all commercial businesses
ARE overdone In this dag. Smitten with the
love OF quick 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 competition
with men Of more means and less conscience,
and IL an opportunity Of accumulation be ne
lgiected one hour some one else picks 1t up.
From January to December thestruggle goes
'on. Night gives no quiet to limbs tossing in
trestlessness, nor to brain that will not stop
thinking. The dreams are narrowed by
imaginary loss and flashed with imaginary
gains. Even the Sabbath cannot dam back
the tide Of anxiety, for this wave Of worldli-
ness dashes clear over the churches and
leaves its foam on Bibles and prayer books.
4 Men who are living on salaries or by the
culture Of the soil cannot understand the
wear and tear OF body and mind to. which
our merchants are subjected when they do
not know but that their livelihood and their
business honor are dependent upon the un-
oertainties Of the next hour. This excite
ment OF the brain, this corroding care Of the
heart, this strain OF effort that exhausts the
spirit, sends great many OF our best men in
midlife to the grave. They find
that Wall street docs not end at the East
River. 1t ends at Greenwood! Their life
dashed out against money safes. They go
with their store on their back. They trudge
like camels, sweating from Aleppoto Dsmas-
ous Thev make their life crucifxior.
Standing behind desks and counters. ban
ished from the fresh air, weighed down by
carking cares, they are 80 many suicides.
Oh wish could to-day rub out some Of
these lines Of care that could lift some OF
the burdens from the heart that I could
give relaxation to some of these worn
muscles! 1t is time for you to begin to take
1t q little easier. Do your best, and then
trust God for the rest. Do not fret God
manages all the affairs OF your life, and He
manages them for the best Consider the
llles-they always have robes. Behold the
fowls Of the air-they always have nests.
Take long breath. Bethink betimes that
God did not make you pack horse. Dig
yourselves out from among the hO2sheads
and the shelves. and in the light of the holy