The Red Cloud chief., 1893-07-28
TO BUSINESS MEN.
Dr.. Talmage Discourses on Finan-
cial Troubles.
Honesty tho Hest Policy Folly of Over
anxiety and Care The Soul More VAL
sable Than All the Money In
tho World.

In n recent sermon at Brooklyn Rev.
". Dewitt Talmagc ~discourscd on the
timely subject of Comfort for business
Men," the text being Isaiah xl. q:
"Speak we comfortably To Jerusalem"
The preacher said:
What an awful six weeks In CONNER
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 every good
work, and whose hands have blessed
every great charity. The church Of
God can afford to extend TO them her
sympathics, and plead before Heaven
with all availing prayer. The schools
such men have established, the churches
they have built, the asylums and bencii-
cont institutions they have fostercd.
will be their culogy long after their
banking institutions are forgotten.
Such men can never fail. They have
their treasures in banks that never
break, and will be %millionaircs forever.
The stringency of the money market, |
am glad To say, begins To relax. May
the wisdom of Almighty God come
down upon our national legislature at
their converting next month in Wash
ington, and such results be reached as
shall restore confidence, and revive
trade, and multiply properties! Yet,
not only now in the time of financial
disaster, but all through life our active
business people have u struggle, and |
think n will be appropriate and useful
for me to talk about their trials and try
to offer some curative prescriptions.
In the first place | have to remark
that u great many Of our business men
feel ruinous trials and temptations
coming to them from small and limited
capital in business. 1t is everywhere
understood that II takes now three or
four times rs much to do business we'll
as IT once did. Once u few hundred
dollars were turned into ~goods-thc
merchant would be his own store
sweeper, his W salesman, his W
bookkeeper: he would manage all the
affairs himself, and everything would
be net profit. Wonderful changes have
Gomez; costly apparatus extensive advcr-
tising, ~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 CAPT. |
tai, 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 tempta-
ton. They have yielded the battle be-
fore the first shot was fired. At the
first hard gun they surrendered. Their
knees knocked together ut the fall of
the a%uctioneer's hammer. They
at the financial peril. They
did not understand that there is such
a thing rs hcroism in merchandise. and
that there are Waterloos of the counter,
and that n man can fight no drawer bat
tie 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 coun-
.tenanccs o~vcrshadowcd even their dry
goods and groceries. Dependency,
coming from limited capital, blasted
them. Others have felt il in n different
way. They have said: Here | have
hnnn tytrdpinr al.nr ~ -. 49,. /
ing to be honest all these years. find
1t 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, OF the great sea of
speculation. Stocks are the dice with
which he CANDLES. lie bought for II
few dollars vast tracts of western land. |
Some man ut the east, living on a fat
homestead, meets this gambler of for.
tune and is persuaded to trade OFF his
estate here for lots in u western city
with large and Costly palaces,
and lake steamers smoking at the
wharvss, and rail trains coming down
with lightning speed from every
There it is all on pa
per! The city has never been
built, nor the railroads con-
structed, but everything points
that way, and the thing will DO done
as sure us you live, And that is the
process by which many have been
tempted, through limitation of CAPT.
tai, into l%abyrinths from which they
could not be eytricated. | would not
want to chain honest enterprise. |
would not want to block up any of the
avenues for honest emulation that
open before young men, On the con-
trary, | would like to cheer them on
and rejoice when they reach the goal;
but when there are such multitudes OF
men going to ruin for this life and the
life that Is to come, through wrong no.
tions of what are lawful spheres of II
terprise, il is the duty of the ministers
of religion, and the friends of all young
men, to utter n plain, emphatic, IN
mistakable protest. These are the in
that drown men in destruction
and perdition.
Again. A great many of our business
men. are tempted to over-anxiety and
are You know that nearly all com