The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1895-08-31
sBUSINEsS TROUBLES
hev. DR.. Talmage Gives Warning
to Overworked Business Men.


| Inc IOllOWlng sermon on DuSiHcoe
Troubles" is selected by Rev T. De-
Witt Talmage, who is still sojourning
in the west, for publication this week.
1t is based on the text;
These were thy merchants In all sorts Of
thinRs.-EKekiel xvii, "a
| We are Mt the opening door of re.
turning national prosperity. The com.
Ing crops, the re-cstablishment of pub
lie confidence and, above all, the
blessing or God, will turn in upon all
sections of America the widest, great
est prosperity this country has ever
seen. But that door Of successes is
not vet 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 in 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-availing prayer. The
schools such men have established,
the churches they have built, the
csylums and benefcent 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 But I thought
it would be appropriate, to-day, and
useful. for me to talk about the trials
and temptations of our business men,
and try to offer some curative pre-
scriptions.
In the first place, have to remark
that great many Of our business men
feel ruinous trials and temptations
coming to them from small and limit
ed capital in business 1t is every
| where understood that it takes now
three or four times as much to do
business well as once it did. Once, a
few hundred dollars 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 everything
would be net profit. Wonderful
changes have come; costly apparatus,
extensive advertising, exorbitant 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 some
times been tempted to run against the
rocks of moral and financial destruc-
ton. This temptation of limited cap
ital has ruined men In two ways.
Sometimes they have shrunk down un-
der the temptation. They have yield
ed the battle before the first shot was
fred. At the first hard dun they sur
rendered. Their knees knocked to-
gether at the fall of the auctioneer's
hammer. They blanched at the finan.
cial peril. They did not understand
that there Is such a thing as 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 yard-stick. Their souls
melted in them because sugars
were mp 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 over
Swallowed even their dry goods and
groceries Dependency, coming from
limited capital, blasted them. Others
have felt it in a different way. They
have said: .Here l have been trudg-
ing along. have been trying to be
honest all these years, / find it is no
use. Now it is make or break" The
small craft that could have stood the
stream, is put out beyond the light
house. on the great sea of speculation.
He borrows few thousand dollars
from friends who dare not refuse him.
and he goes bartering on a
large scale. He reasons in
this way: Perhaps may
succeed, and If don't will be no
worse of than l am now, for one hun
dred Thousand 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 on
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 steamboats, smoking at the
wharves. and rail -trains coming down
with lightning speed from every direc-
ton. There it is all on papcrI
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 sweat from his brow, and
says: II wonder where that man got
all his money" After awhile the bub-
BILE bursts. Creditors rush in. Thelaw
clutches, but finds nothing in its grasp.
The men who were swindled say: II
don't know how could have ever been
deceived by that man." and the pictori-
ais, in handsome wood cuts, set forth
the hero who in ten years had genius
enough to fail for one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars!
And that is the process by which |
many have been tempted through linn
itation of capital to rush into laby-
rinths from which they could not be
extracted. would not want to block
up any of the avenues for honest ac-
emulation that open before young
men. On the contrary, would like to
cheer them on, and rejoice when they