The Penn's Grove record., 1893-07-21
REV. DR.. TALMAGR.
The Brooklyn Diyine's
Sunday Sermon.
Subject "Comfort for Business Men,"

Subject "ComfOrt for BUSINESS Men.
TEXT: "SpeaE pc comfortably to tJerusa-
lem ."-Issiah H., ..
What IN 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 moneymarket for tho
last year have put all bargain makerS at
their wits end. Some OF the best men In
the land have ifaitered-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 sympathies and plead be-
fore heaven with all availing prayer. The
schools such men have established, the
churches they have built, the asylumsI and
beneficent institutions they have fostared,
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 mi.lionaires forever. The stringency OF
the money market, l am glad to say, begins
10 relax. May the wisdom of Almighty God
come down upon our National legislature at
their converting next month in Washington
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 q struggle, and l
think it will be appropriate and useful for
me to talk about their trials and try to Offer
some curative prescriptions.
In the first place, I have to remark that a
great many of our bEsines men feel ruinous
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 1t did. Once a few hundred dol
lars were turned into ~goods-the merchant
would be his own store sweeper, his own
salesman, his DIV ~bookkeeper. He would
manage all the affairs himself, and every
thing would be net profit. Wonderful
changes have'come. Costly apparatus, ex-
tensive advertising, 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 circumstance 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 thu 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 unueFSIdnu tuHt tneE6' Is SUCH u tnllS u
heroism in merchandise, and that there are
Waterloos of the counter, and that a man
can fight no Drawer battle with thesword than
he can with the yardstick.
Their souls melted in them because sugars
We're up when they wanted to. buy and down
when they wanted to sell and unstable
goods were on the shelf md bad debts in
their ledger. The gloom of their counte-
nances ~overshadowed even their dry goods
and groceries. Dependency, coming from
limited capital. blasted them. Others nave
felt it in a different way. They have said
"Here / have been trudging along. l Eave
been trying 10 be honest all these years. l
find it is of no use. Now 1t 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
a few dollars vast tracts of western land.
Some mar at the east living on a fat home
stead meets this gambler OF fortune and is
persuaded to trade off his estate here for lots
in a western city with large avenues and
costly palaces and lake steamers smoking at
the wharves ana rail trains coming down
with lightning speed from every direction.
There it is all on paper! The city has never
oeen 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
labyrinths from which they could not be ex-
trlcated.
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 AMI rejoice
when they reach the goal, but when there are
such multituies 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-
utter a plain, emphatic. nmista id1le pro-
test. These are the influences that drown
men in destruction n perdition.
Again, u great many of our bushes mel
are tempted to o~ver-anxiety and care. You
know that nearly all commercial businesses
ara oyerdone in this day. Smilten with the
,ove of quick gain, our cities are crowded
with men resolved to be rich ut all hazar Is.
They do not care how money comes. Oar
| best merchants are thrown into competition
| with men OF more means an 4 less conscien sc,
| and II m opportunity Of accu mutation be ne
elected one hour so ne one else picks il up.
From January 10 Decsmber the struggle goes
on. Night gives no quiet to limbs tossing in
restiessne ss. nor to a brain that will not stop
| thinking. The dreams are narrowed hy
imaginary loss and flashed with imaginary
gains. Even the Sabbath cannot lam back
the tide of anxiety, for this wave of worldli.
ness dashes clear over the churches and
caves its foam on Bibles and prayer books.
Men who are living on salaries or by tho
culture of the soil cannot understand the
wear and fear 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 IN
certainties 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 a great many of our best men in
midlife to the grave. They find
that Wall street does 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 trulge
like camels, sweating from Aleppoto Damas-
Gus. Thew make their life a c%rucilxion.
Standing behind desks and counters. ban-
| ished from the fresh air, weighed down by
earking cares, they are SO many suicides.
oh, l wish I could to-day rub out some of
these lines OF care that 1 could lift some OF
the burdens from the heart that 1 could
give relaxation to some of these worn
muscles! 1t is time for you to begin to take
It a 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
! lilies-they always lave robes, Behold the
fowls OF tho air-they always have nests.
idht u lOhb hb1NA SAAh iAtiA lltt
God did not make you a pack horse. Dig
yourselves out from among the hogsheads
and the shelves, and in the light of the holy
Sabbatn day resolve that you will give to the
winds your fears, and your %fretfulness, and
your distresses. You brought nothing into
the world. and it Is very certain you can
carry nothing out, Having food and
raimant, be Herewith content,
TIL merchant came home from the store.
There mad been great disaster there. He
opened tue front door and said in the midst
Of his family circle 81 am ruined. Ev.
erything is gone. I am all ruined His
wife said, 81 am lett" and the little child
threw up its hands aud said, "Papa, 1 am
here" The aged grandmother seated in the
room said, "Then you have all the promises
of God beside, John" And he burst into
tears and said God forgive me that I have
been so unSratefgl. 1 hnd I have a great
many things left. God forgive me-"
Again, l remarS talt many Of our business
men are tempted TO neglect their home duties.
How often 1t is that the store and the home
seem to clash. but there ought not to be any
collision. 1t is often the case that the father
a.. Ar .nu opy..a - kha f,,.ft- -.