Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1895-07-25


who sold millions Of dollars Of goods q
year, but the vast majority Of business
men do not sell million dollars Of goods,
nor half million, nor a quarter OF mill
lion, nor the eighth part Of million. Put
all the business men Of our cities, towns,
villages and neighborhoods side by side.
and you will find TINT they sell less than
csc, 600 worth of goods All these mon in
ordinary business lifc want divine help.
You see how the wrinkles are printing
on the countenance the story OF wOrriment
and care. You cannot tell how old o busi-
ness man is by looking at him. Gray hairs
at so. A man at As with the stoop Of a
nonogenarian. No time 20 attend to i'm
proved dentistry, the grinders cease be-
cause they are few. Actually dying Of old
age ut 40 or sc, when they ought to be at
the meridian. Many Of these business
men have bodies like neglected clock to
which you come, and you wind it up and
it begins to buzz and roar, and then the
hands start around very rapidly, and then
tho clock strikes or 10 or 40, and strikes
without any sense, and then suddenly
stops. So is the body of that wornout
business man. 1t Is q neglected clock, and
though by some summer recreation it may
be wound up still the machinery is all out
Of gear. The hands turn around with a
velocity that excites the astonishment of
the world.
| Men cannot understand the wonderful
activity, and there is a roar, and buzz,
and rattle about these disordered lives,
and they strike 10 when they ought to
strike 5, and they strike 12 when they
ought to strike 6, and they strike 40 when
they ought to strike nothing, and suddenly
they stop. Postmortem examination re-
veals the fact that all the springs and piv-
| OTIS and weights and balance wheels of
health are completely deranged. The hu
man clock has simply run down. And at
the time when the steady hand ought to be
| pointing to the Industrious hours on a
| clear and sunlit dial, the whole machinery
| of body, mind and earthly capacity stops
forever. The cemeteries have thousands of
business men who died of old age at 80,
30, 40, 45.
The Kind of Grace Needed.
Now, what is wanted is grace--divine
grace for ordinary business men, men who
are harnessed from morn till night and all
the days of their life-harnessed in busi-
ness. Not grace to lose 100000, but grace
to lose So Not grace to supervise $50
employees in q factory, but grace to SUPER
wise the bookkeeper and two salesmen and
the small boy that sweeps out the store.
Grace to invest not the $500 of net
profit, but the SO, 500 of clear gain. Grace
not to endure the loss of whole shipload
of spices from the Indies, but grace to en-
dure the loss OF paper Of collars from the
leakage of displaced shingle on poor
roof. Grace not to endure the hardness of
the American congress in passing a neces-
sary 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
today-keeping them tranquil whether
goods sell or do not sell, whether custom
ers pay or do not pay, whether tariff Is up
or tariff is down, whether the crops are
luxuriant or a dead failure-calm in all
circumstances 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 men come out and stand on
ltiptoe on their store steps and look at some
one who in arctic cline, or in ocean
storm, or in day of battle, or in hospital
agonies, did the brave thing, not realizing
that they, the enthusiastic spectators, have
gone through trials In business life that
are Just as great before God. There are
men who have gone through freezing arc
tics and burning torrids and awful Maren-
gos of experiences without moving five
miles from their doorsteps. Now, what
ordinary business men need Is to realize
that they have the friendship of that Christ
who looked after the religious interests Of
Matthew, the custom house clerk, and
helped Lydia of Thyatira to sell the dry
goods, and who opened a bakery and fish
market in the wilderness Of Asia Minor to
feed the 1000 who had come out on re-
ligious picnic, and who counts the hairs of
your head with as much particularity as
though they were the plumes of a corona
ton, and who took the trouble to stoop
down with his finger writing on the
ground, although the first shuttle of feet
obliterated the divine caligraphy, and who
knows just how many locusts there were
in the Egyptian plague and knew just
how many ravens were necessary to supply
Elijah's pantry by the brook Cherith, and
who, as floral commander, leads forth all
the regiments of primroses, foxgloves, daft
fodils, hyacinths and lilies which pitch
their tents of beauty and kindle their camp.
fires of color all around the hemisphere;
that that Christ and that God knows the
most minute affairs of your business life,
and, however inconsiderable, understand
ing all the affairs of that woman who
Keeps q thread and needle store as we'll as
all the affairs of Rothschild and Stew
art.
Ordinary Farmers.
Then there are all the ordinary farmers
We talk about agricultural life, and we
Immediately shoot off to talk about Gin
cinnatus the patrician, who went from
the plow to a high position, and after he
got through the dictatorship in 21 days
went back again to the plow. What en-
couragement is that to ordinary farmers?
The vast majority Of them, none of them,
will be patricians. Perhaps none of them
will be senators. If any of them have die
tatorships, it will be over 40 or 80 or 100
acres of the old homestead. What those
men want is grace to keep their patience
while plowing with balky oxen, and to
keep cheerful amid the drought that de-
stroys the corn crop, and that enables
them to restore the garden the day after
the neighbor's cattle have broken in and
trampled out the strawberry bed and gone
through the lima bean patch and eaten up
the sweet corn in such large quantities
that they must be kept from the water
; lest they swell up and die; grace in catch
! ing weather that enables them, without
inprecation, to spread out the hay the
J third time, although again and again and
} again it has been almost ready for the
NOW; a grace to doctor the cow with a
hollow horn, and the sheep with the foot
} rot, and the horse with the distemper, and
to compel the unwilling acres to yield a
. livelihood for the family, and schooling
for tllA children, and little extras to help