Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1894-01-13

and Laurel Hill and Mount Auburn
who might as well have been alive and
well and supporting their families.
They got a little sick, and they were
so worried about what would become
of their households in case of their de-
mise that their agitations overcame the
skill of the physicians, and they died
for fear of dying. | have for many
years been such an ardent advocate of
life Insurance, and my sermon ON The
Crime of Not Iusuring' has been so
long used on both sides of the sea by
the chief life insurance companies that
some people have supposed that | re-
cejved monetary compensation for what
layo said and written. Not penny.
| will give any man 500 for every pen
ny have received from any life insur-
ancc company. What | have said and
written on the subject has resulted
from the conviction that these institu-
tons arc Il berediction to the human
race. But. alas, for the widespread i'm
providence. You are now in your char
/ tiles helping to support tho families of
men who had more income than You
now have, or ever have had, or ever
will have, and You can depend ON the
improvidencc Of many for the truth of
my text in all times and in all places,
We have the poor always with you.
| LACK OF MENTAL BALANCE.
! Another fact that you may depend
upon for perpetual poverty is the in
1 capacity of many to achieve hyeli-
/ hood. YoG can go through any COM
munity and find good people with more
than usual mental caliber, who never
have been able to support themselves
and their households. They are a mys-
tery TO us, and we say, 81 do not know
what is the matter of them. but there is
screw loose somewhere. Some of
! these persons have more brain than
| thousands who make splendid sue
cess. Some are too sanguine of tenn
permanent, and they see bargains where
! there arc none. A common minnow is
to them gold fish, and n quail a fla
mingo, and blind mule on a towpath
a Bucephalus. They buy when things
are highest and sell when things are
| lowest. Some one tells them of city lots
out west, where the foundation CT the
first house has not yet been laid. They
say What an opportunity" ana they
put down the hard cash for an orna-
mented deed for 10 lots under water.
They hear CT new silver minc opened
in Nevada, and they say, What a
chance!" and they take the little
money they have in the savings bank
and pay it cat for as beautiful certif-
cate of mining stock as was ever print
ed, and the only thing they will ever
get out of the investment is the aforesaid
illuminated Telegraph. They are al
ways on the verge of millionairedom
and are sometimes worried as to whom
they shall bequeath their excess of for
tune. They invest in aerial machines
or new inventions in perpetual motion,
and they succeed in what mathemati-
clans think impossible, the squariug of
a circle, for they do everything on the
square and win the whole circle of dis
appointment. They are good honest,
brilliant failures. They die poor, and
leave nothing to their families but
model of some invention that would not
work and whole portfolios of diagrams
of things impossible. | cannot help
but like them, because they are so
cheerful with great expectations. But
their children are a bequest to the bu-
reau of city charities. Others admin
lister to the crop of the worlds misfor-
tune by being too unsuspecting. Honest
themselves, they believe all others are
honest. They are neeced and scalped
and vivisected by the sharpers i'll ali
styles of business and cheated out of
everything between cradle and grave,
and those two exceptions only because
they have nothing to do in buying
either of them. Others are retained for
misfortune by inopportune sickness.
just as that lawyer was to make the
plea that would have put him among
the strong men Of the profession, neu-
ralgia stung him. Just as that physi-
clan was to prove his skill IN an cpl
denic, his own poor health imprisoned
him. just as that merchant must be
at the store for some decisive and intro
ductOry bargain, he sits with a rheu-
matte joint on aplllow, the loom redol-
ent with Gniment. What an over
whelming statistic would be the story
Of men and women and children i'm
poyerished by sicknessesl Then the cy-
clones. Then the Mississippi and Ohio
freshets. Then the stopping Of the
factories. Then the curculios among
the peach trees. Then the insectile
devastation of potato patches and wheat
fields. Then the epizootics among the
horses and the hollow horn among the
herds. Then the rains that drown ont
everything and the drouehts that burn
up half continent. Then the orange
groves die under the white teeth of
tho boar frost. Then the coal strikes,
and the iron strikes, and the me-
chanlcs' strikes, which all strike
labor harder than they strike capital.
Then the yellow fever at Brunswick and
Jacksonville and Shreveport. Then
the cholera at the Narrows. threatening
to land in New York Then tine Charles
ton earthquake. Then the Johnstown
food. Then hurricanes sweeping from
Caribbean sea TO Newfoundland. Then
there are the great monopolies that gull
ley the earth with their expressions.
Then there are the necessities of buying
coal by the semitic instead Of the ton,
and Honr by the pound instead Of the
barrel, and SO the injustices are mutt
piled. In the wake Of all these are over
whelming illustrations of the truth Of
my text, aye have the poor always
with you.
CELESTIAL INSURANCE.
Remember fact that no one empha-
sizes "a fact, nevertheless, upon which
want to put the weight Of an eternity
Of tonnage-that the best way of insur-
ing yourself and yonr children and your
( grandchildren against poverty and all
other troubles is by helping others. /
4 am an agent Of the oldest insurance
company that was ever established. Ii
/ is near 3, 600 years old It has the adj
I vantage Of all the other plans Of insur-
GHce-wholo life policy. endowment,
I joint life and suryivorship policies,
ascending and descending scales Of pre-
{ MUM and tontine- and it pays up while
you live and it pays up after you are
dead. Every cent you give IN Chris
tian spirit 10 d poor man or woman, ey-
cry shoe you give to barefoot, every
stick Ct wood OF lump Of coal yon give
to fireless hearth, every drop Of med
icine you give to poor invalid. every
star Ct hope you make to shine over
1znFrvfarzsa fuaravr,ifx- erarv Ynsftar.