Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1895-07-13
ACCOMAC c. Fl, VA SATURDAY. JULY 10. 1896
TRIALS OF BUSINESS.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE DISCUSSES A TIME
LY SUBJECT.

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REV. DR.. TALMAGE DISCUSSES A TIME,
LY SUBJECT.
After Clouds of Distress There VIII Fol-
low tho Sunshine of National ProsperI-
ty-What the Business Man Is Com
PEELED to Underxo-The Souls Welfare.
NEW YORK, July Tn his sermon
for today Dr.. Talmage, who is still alb
sent on his western lecturing tour, chose
subject Of universal interest-viz,
Business TROUBLES the text selected
boing Ezekiel xvii, 81, "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
confidence and, above all, the blessing
of God will turn III upon all sections Of
America the widest, greatest prosperity
this country has ever seen. But that
door of successes is not yet fully OPEN,
and thousands of business men are yet
suffering from the distressing times
through which we have been passing.
Some of the best men III the land have
faltered, 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 before
heaven with all awaiting prayer. The
! schools such men have established, the
churches they have built, the asylums
and beneficont institutions they have
fostered will be their eulogy long after
their banking institutions are forgotten.
Such men can never fail. They have
their treasures III banks that never break
and will be millionaires forever But I
thought it would be appropriate today
and useful for mo to talk about the tri-
ais and temptations of our business men
and try to offer some curative prescrip-
lions.
Rocks of Danger.
In the first place, have to remark
that great many of our business men
feel ruinous trials and temptations COM
ing to them from small and limited cap
ital in business. 1t is everywhere under
stood that it takes now three or four
times as much to do business well as
once it did. Once few hundred dollars
were turned into goods. The merchant
would be his own storekeeper, his own
salesman his own bookkeeper. He would
manage all the affairs himself, and ev-
erything would be net profit. Wonder
full changes have come. Costly apparatus,
extensive 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 oircum-
stances with small capital they have
sometimes been tempted to run against
the rocks of moral and financial destruc-
ton. This temptation of limited capital
has ruined men in two ways. Sometimes
they have shrunk down under the temp
tation. They have yielded the battle be
fore the first shot WAS fred. At the first
hard dun they surrendered. Their knees
knocked together at the fall of the auc-
tioneer's hammer. They blanched at the
financial peril. They did not understand
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 yardstick. Their
souls melted in them because sugars
were up when they wanted to 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 countenances overshadowed even
their dry goods and groceries. Despond-
ency, coming from limited capital,
blasted them. Others have felt it i'll o
different way. They have said: Here
have been trudging along. l have been
trying to be honest all these years. l
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 spccula-
ton. He borrows q few thousand dollars
from friends who dare not refuse him,
and he goes bartering OH large scale.
He reasons III this way: Perhaps l may
succeed, and if l don't I will be no
worse off than I am now, for 500, 900
taken from nothing, nothing remains. "
Stocks are the dice with which he
CANDLES. He bought for few dollars
vast tracts of western land. Some man
at the east, living OH fat homestead,
meets this gambler of fortune and is
persuaded to trade off his estate 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 pa
per! 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. 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 sM eat from his brow and says,
81 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, II
don't know how 1 could have ever been
deceived by that man, and the pictori-
ais, in handsome woodcuts, set forth
the hero who in ten years had genius
enough to fail for $50, 900!
And that is the process by which many
have been tempted through limitation
of capital to rush into labyrinths from
which they could not be extricated. l
would not want to chain honest enter
prise. would not want to block up any