The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-07-08
TALMAeE ON MONEY TROUBLES
THE GREAT EXHORTER breaches
A SERMON ON BUSINESS.


tions TO Many Men-A Modern Land
DeaI-TemptatfOn to Overcare md
Anxiety-NegIect of Home Duties.
Attainment of Money Put Above
the Value of the Soul.
New York. July TN his sermon for to-
day. DR.. Talmage. who is still absent on
his western lecturing tour. chose a sub
5ect Of universal interest. viz; Business
Troubles" the text selected being Eze-
kiel q: "a; These were thy merchants in
all sorts Of things
We are at the opening door Of return
ing national prosperity. The coming
crops. the re-establishment Of public con
hdence. and. above all. the blessing OF
God, will turn in upon all sections OF Amer
lea the widest. greatest prosperity this
country has ever seen. But that door OF
successes is not yet fully open, and thou
sands Of business men are yet suffering
from the distressing times through which
we have been passing.
Some of the best men in the land have
faltered; men whose hearts are enlisted in
every good work. and whose hands have
of God can afford to extend to them her
sympathies. and plead before heaven with
all-availing prayer. The schools such men
have established. the churches they have
built. the asylums and benedcent institu-
tions they have fos1ered, will be their eulo-
gy long after their banking institutions
are forgotten. Such men can never fail.
bef IN, tf,k
never break, and will be millionaires for
ever. But l thought it would be appro-
pirate, to-day, and useful. for me to talk
about the trials and temptations of our
business men, and try TO offer some cura-
tive 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. 1t is everywhere understood that
IT takes now three or four times as much
10 do business well as il once did Once
a few hundred dollars We're turned into
goods-the merchant would be his own
store-sweeper, his own salesman, his own
bookkeeper, he would manage all the af-
fairs himself, and everything would be net
profit. Wonderful changes have come;
costly apparatus, extensive advertising,
eXhorbitant store rents. heavy taxation,
expensive agencies are only parts of the de-
mand made upon our commercial men and
when they have found themselves IN such
circumstances with small capital, they
have sometimes been tempted 10 run
against the rocks OF moral and financial
destruction. This temptation Of limited
capital has ruined men in two ways. Some
times they have shrunk down under the
temptation. They have yielded the battle
l. 6 "a -
hard dun they surrendered. Their
knees knock together az the fall of the
auctioneer's hammer. They blanched at
the financial peril. They did not under
stand that there is such thing as heroism
in merchandise, and that there are Water
loos of the counter, and that man can
fight no Drawer battle with the sword than
he can with the yard-stick. Their souls
melted in them because sugars were up
when they wanted to buy, and down when
they wanted to sell, and unsaleable goods
were on the shelf. and bad debts in their
ledger. The gloom of their couh-
tenances overshadoWed even their dry
goods and groceries. Dependency, COM
ing from limited capital, blasted them.
Others have felt IL in different way. They
have said: Here I have been trudging
along. have been trying 10 be honest all
these years. find it is of no use. Now 1t
Is make OF break" The small craft that
CDhlu nave SlOOu the stream, Is put out De-
-yond the lighthouse, on the great sea of
speculation. He borroWs a few thousand
dollars from friends who dare not refuse
him, and he goes bartering on a large scale.
He reasons in this way: Perhaps l may
succeed, and If / don't / will be no worse
off than am now, for hundred thousand
dollars taken from nothing nothing re-
MAINS" Stocks are the dice with which
he CANDLES. He bought for a few dollars
vast tracts of western land. Some man at
the east, living on a fat homestead, meets
this gambler Of fortune and is persuaded
to trade off his estate, for lots in a 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 1t is all
on paper! The city has never been built,
nor the railroads constructed, but every
thing points that way, and the thing will
be done as sure as you live. Well, the man
goes on, stopping at no fraud or outrage.
In his splendid equipage he dashes past
while the honest laborer looks up. and
wipes the sweat from his brow, and says,
II wonder where that man got all his
money" After awhile the bubble bursts
Creditors rush in. The law clutches, but
finds nothing in its grasp. The men who
were swindled say: Il don't know how 1
could have ever been deceived by that
man." and the pictorials, in handsome
wood-cuts, set forth the hero who in ten
years had genius enough to fail for $780,,
900!
And that is the process by which many
have been tempted through linn
ttation of capital, to rush
into labyrinths from which they
could not be extricated. 1 would not want
TO chain honest enterprise. 1 would not
want to block up any of the avenues for
honest accumulation that open before
young men. On the contrary, l would like
10 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 enterprise, it is the duty of the Church
of God, and the ministers of religion, and
the friends of all young men, to utter
plain, emphatic, unmistakable protest.
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 bust
nesses are overdone in this day. 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, if it only comes. Our best mer-