Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1895-07-19

greatest prosperity this country has ever
seen. But that door of success 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 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 gym
pathies aud pieal before heaven with all
awaiting PRAYER The schools such men have
established, the churches they have built,
the asylums and benencent 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 milliOnares forever. But l thought 1t
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 prescriptions.
In the first place, have to remark that
great many of our business men feel ruinOu3
trials and temptations coming to them from
small and limited capital in business. 1t is
everywhere understood that it now takes
three or four times aS much to do business
we'll than it once did. Once few hundred
dollars were turned ints goods. The mer-
chant would be his own stOrekeeper, his own
salesman, his own bOokkeeler. He would
manage all the affairs himself, aul every
thing would be net profit. Wonderful
changes have come. Costly apparatus, eX-
tensve advertising, exorbtant store rents.
heavy taxation, expensive agencies are only
parts of tho demand made upon our COM
mercial men, and when they have found
themselves in such circumstances with small
capital they have sometimes been tempted to
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 baltic
before the first shot was fired. At the first
hard dun they surrendered Thsir knees
Knocked together at the fall of the auction
GERS hammer They blanched at the ilnan-
cial peril. They did not understand that
there is such thing as herOism in merchau-
disc and that there are Waterloos Of the
counter aud that man can fight no Drawer
battle with the sword than he can with the
yardstck Their souls melted in them be-
cause sugars were up when they wanted to
buy and down when they wanted to sell. and
unstable goods were on tho shelf and
bad debts in their ledger The gloom OF
their countenances overshaAOwed even their
dry goods and groceries. Dependency,
coming from limited capital, blasted them.
Others have felt it in Il different way They
have said "Here l have been trudginS
along. 1 have been trying TO be honest all
these years. find it is Of no use. Now it
is make or break" Tho small craft that
could have stood the stream is put out be-
yond the lighthouse on the great sea of spec
ulation. IL borrOws a Jew thousand dollars
from friends who dare not refuse him, and he
goes barterng on large scale. He reasons
in this way "Perhaps l may succeed, and ii
l don't | will be no worse Off than am now,
for 800. 600 taken from nothing, nothing re-
mains
Stocks are the dice with which he gam
bles. He lOught for few dollars vast tracts
of Western land. Some man at the East, liy-
ing on fat homestead, meets this gambler
of fortune and is persuaded to trade off his
estate for lots in Western city, with largo
avenues, and costly palaces, and lake sterm-
ers smoking at the wharves, and rail trains
coming down with lightning speed from
every direction. There it is all on paper!
The city has never been built nor the rail-
roads constructed, but everything points that
way, and the thing will be done rs sure as
you live. Well, the man goes on, stopping
at no fraud or outrage. In his splendid
equipage ne dashes past, while the honest
laborer looks up and wipes tho sweat from
his brow and says, II wonder where that
man got all his money!" After a while the
bubble bursts. Creditors rush in. The law
clutches, but finds nothing in it's grasp. The
men who were swindled say, 81 don't know
how 1 could have ev5r 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 $3.50, OOOl
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 eXtrcated, l would not
want to chain honest enterprise. l would
not want to block up any Of the avenues for
honest accumulation that open before young
men. On the contrary would liketo 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 minis
| tiers of religion, ana the friends OF all young
men, to utter a plain, emphatic, unmis-
taxable protest. These arc the influences
! that drown men in destruction and per-
ditiOn.
| Again, great many of our business men
are tempted to overanxiety and care. You
know that nearly all commercial businesses
are oyerdone in this day. Smitten with the
love of quick gain, our cities are crowded
! with men resolved to be rich at all hazards.
only comes. Our best merchants are thrOwl
into competition with men of more means
and less conscience, and if an opportunity
of accumulation be neglected one hour
some one else picks it up. From
January to December the struggle goes
on. Night gives no quiet to limbs toss
ing in restlessness nor to Il brain that
will not stop thinking The dreams are
narrowed by imaginary loss and flushed
with imaginary gains. Even the SAP
bath cannot dam back the tide of anxiety,
for this wave of worldlness dashes clear
over the churches and leaves its foam on
Bibles and prayer books. Men who arc
| living on salaries or by the cultivation OF tho
soil cannot understand the wear and tear OF
| the body and mind to which our merchants
are subjected when they do not know but
that their livelihood AMI their business
honor are dependent upon the uncertainties
of the next hour. This excitement OF the
brain, this corrOding care of the heart. thus
strain of effort that exhausts the spirit,
sends great many of our best men in mid
die life into the grave, their life dashed OUT
against money safes. They go with their
store on their backs. They trudge like cam
els. sweating, from AleppO to Damascus.
They make their life a cruciflxion. Stand
ing behind desks and counters, banlshed
from the fresh air. weighed down by cark
ing cares. they are 50 many suicides. Oh, L
wish could 10 day rub out some Of these
lines of care; that could lift some OF the
burdens from the heart that I could give
relaxation to some of these worn muscles.
II is time for you to begin to take it little
easier Do your best and then trust God
for the rest. Do not fret God manages all
the affairs of your life, and He manages
them for the best. Consider the lilies. They
always have robes.
Behold the fowls of the air! They always
have nests. Take long breath. Bethink
betimes that God did not make you for