The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1895-08-02
borah and Jezebel. and HerodIas and

borah and Jezebel. and Herodias an
Athaiiah, and Dorcas n the Mary.
excellent or abandoned-it is high tim
some Of the attention we have been Civ
ing to these conspicuous women of tn
Bible be given to Julia of the text, a
ordinary woman amid ordinary circuni
stances, attending to ordinary dutie
and meeting ordinary responsibilities.
Then there are all the ordinary bust
ness men. They need divine and Chris
tan help. When we begin to ak abou
business life we shoot right off and tall
scale, and who sold millions of dollars o
goods a year; but the vast majority O.
business men do not sell a million dol
lars of goods, nor half a million, nor {
quarter OF a million, nor the eighth par
OF a million. Put all the business mer
OF our cities, towns, villages and neigh
borhoods side by side, and you will FIND
that they sell less than fifty thousand
dollars worth of goods. All these mer
In ordinary business life want divine
help. You see how the wrinkles are
printing on tEe countenance the story
OF worriment and care. You cannot tell
how old a business nan Is by looking al
him. Gray hairs at thirty. A man at
forty-five with the stoop Of a nonogena-
RAN. No time to attend to improved
dentistry, the grinders cease because
they are few. Actually dying Of old
age at forty or fifty, when they ought to
be at the meridian. Many of these bust
ness men have bodies like a neglected
clock to which you come and you wind
1t up, and it begins to buzz INC roar,
and the the hands start around very
rapidly, and then the clock strikes five,
or ten, or forty, and strikes without any
sense, and then suddenly stops. So is
the body Of that WORKOUT business man.
Now, what is wanted is gyace-divine
grace for ordinary business men, men
who are harnesseG from morn till night
and all the days Of their life-harnessed
in business. Not grace to lose a hun
dred thousand, but grace to lose ten
dollars. Not grace to supervise w
hundred and fifty employees in a factory,
but grace to supervise the book-keeper,
and two statesmen and the small boy
that sweeps the store. Grace to invest
not the eighty thousand dollars Of net
profit, but the twenty-five hundred of
clear gain. Grace not to endure the
loss of a whole shipload of spices from
the Indies, but grace to endure the loss
of a paper of collars from the leakage
of a displaced Single on a poor roof.
Grace not to endure the hardness of
the American Congress in passing a
necessary law, but grace to endure the
hardness of an errand boy stopping to
play marbles when he ought to deliver
the goods. Such a grace as thousands of
business men have to-day-keeping
them tranquil whether goods sell or do
not sell, whether customers pay or do
not pay, whether tariff IL up or tariff is
down, whether the crops are luxuriant
or are a dead failure-calm in all cir
cumstances and amid all vicissitudes.
That is the kind of grace we want. Mil
lions of men want it, and they may have
1t for the asking. Some hero or heroine
comes to town, and as the procession
passes through the street, the business
come out and stand upon tiptoe on
store steps and look at some one
who in Arctic cline, or in ocean storm,
or in day of battle, or in hospital ago.
MES, did the brave thing, not realizing
that they, the enthusiastic spectators,
gone through trials in business life
are just as great before God. There
are men. who have gone through freez-
ing Arctics, and burning torrids, and
awful Marengoes of experiences with
out moving five miles from their door.
Now, what ordinary business men need
Is to realize that they have the friend
Of hat Christ who looked after the
religious interests Of Matthew, the Gus
tom-house clerk, and helped Lydia, of
to sell the dry goods, and who
opened n bakery and fish-market in the
wilderness of Asia Minor to feed the
even thousand who had come out on q
religious picnic, and who counts the hairs
IF your head with as much particularly
as though they were the plumes Of a
and who took the trouble to
down with his finger writing on
ground, although the first Shuttle Of
'eet obliterated the divine c~aligraphy, |
who knows just how many locusts
here were in the Egyptian plague, and
Knew just how many ravens were nec-
,ssary to supply Elijah's pantry by the
brook Cherith, and who, as floral COM
nander, leads forth all the regiments of
,rimroses. foxgloves, %daffodils, hya-
and lilies which pitch their tents
If beauty and kindle their camp-fires
# color all around the hemisphere-that
hat Christ and that God knows the
most minute affairs of your business life
nj however inconsiderable, under
standing all the affairs of hat woman
Who keeps a thread-and-needIe store as
veil as all the affairs of a Rothschild
a Stewart.
Then there are all the ordinary farm
RS. We talk about agricultural life.
we Immediately shoot off to talk
bout Cincinnatus, the patrician, who
vent from the plough to a high posi-
ion, and after he got through the die
atorship in twenty one days went
again to the plough. What en-
engagement is that to ordinary farm
rs? The vast majority of them-none
f them will be patricians. Perhaps
of them will be Senators. If any
f them AVE relationships it will be
yer forty, or fifty, or a hundred acres
f the old homestead. What those men
is grace to keep their patience
,hile ploughing with balky oxen, and
D keep cheerful amid the drought that
estroys the corn crop, and that en-
bles them to restore the garden the
ay after the neighbours cattle have
roken IN and trampled out the straw
cry bed, and gone through the Lima
can patch, n eaten up the sweet
in such large Quantities that thew