Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1893-07-28
REV. DIR. TALNAGH.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun.
day Sermon.
Subject: "Comfort for Business NJ NJ

TEXT "Speak ye comfortably to JeruSa-
lem. Isaiah XII, 2.
What an awful six weeks In commercial
circles The crashing of banks from San
Francisco to New York and from ocean tc
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 al
their wits end. Some of the best men in
the land have faltered-mcn whose hearts
are enlisted in every good work and
whose hands have blessed every great
charity. The church of God can afford to
extend 10 them her sympathies and plead be.
fore heaven with all availing prayer. The
schools such men have established the
churches they have built, the asylums and
benehcent 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, l 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 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
think 1t 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 a
great many of our business men feel ruinous
trials and temptations coming to them from
small and limited capital In business. It is
everywhere understood that 1t takes now
three or four times as much to do business
we'll rs once 1t did. Once few hundred dol
lars 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, exoroitant store rents,
heavy Taxation, expensive agencies, ore
only parts OF the demand made upon cur
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 fired. At the first hard gun thev
1uclI kuSCS kuOCk6u iOGtLQc,.
at the fall of the auctionesr's hammer They
blanched at the financial peril. They did
not understand that there is such a thing O
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 yardstick.
Their souls melted in them because sugars
were up when they wanted 10 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-
nances overshadOwed even their dry goods
and groceries. Dependency, coming from
limited capital blasted them. Others have
felt il in different way. They have said
"Here haze been trudging along. / have
been trying 10 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 on
the great sea of speculation. Stocks are the
dice with which he CANDLES. He bought for
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 off 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
labyrinths from which they could not be ex-
trlcated.
I 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 there are
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
it is the duty of ministers of re-
igion and the friends of all young men tc
utter plain, emphatic, unmistakable pro-
est. These are the influences that drown
men in destruction and perdition.
Again, great many of our business men |
ire tempted to over-anxiety and care. You
know that nearly all commercial businesses
ire overdone in this day. Smitten with the
owe 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, .
elected one hour some one else picks it up
From January to December Eestruggle goes
IN. Night gives no quiet to limbs tossing il !
nor to brain th::. $ ilnot stop
The dreams are ----owed 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 J
leaves its foam on Bibles and prayer books.
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-
,ertainties of the next hour. This excite |
nent 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
nldllfe to the grave They find |
hat 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 trudge
ike cameis, sweating from Aleppoto Damas-
,us. They make their life a crucifxion.
Standing behind desks and counters, ban
shed from the fresh air, weighed down by
'arking cares, they are so many suicides.
Oh, wish [ could to-day rub out some OF
hese lines of care; that 1 could lift some OF
he burdens from the heart that | could
rive relaxation to some OF these worn
muscles IL is time for you to begin TO take
little easier Do your best, and then
rust God for the rest. Do not fret God
manages all the affairs of your life and He