Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1897-08-21
AcCOMAC G r. VA, SATURDAY AUGUST 81 L
Commercial Ethics.

0tn1CS, ana L uln SOlIClIOtls uuOuu blCui.
1 want to warn them against being
slaughtered on the sharp edges of debt.
You want many things you have not,
my young friends. You shall have them
if you have patience and honesty and
industry. Certain lines of conduct al
ways lead out to certain successes.
There is law which controls even
those things that seem haphazard. !
have been told by those who have OBJ
served that it is possible to calculate
Just how many letters will be sent to
the dead letter office every year through
miadrection; that it is possible to cal
culatc Just how many letters will be de-
tanned for lack of postage stamps through
the forgetfulness of the senders, and
that it is possible to tell just how many
people will fail in the streets by slip
ping on an orange peel. In other words,
there are 10 accidents. The most insig-
nificant event you ever heard of is the
link between two eternities-the eter-
nifty of the past and the eternity Of the
future. Head the right way, young
man, and you will come out at the
right goal.
Bring mo young man and tell me
what his physical health is and what
his mental caliber and what his habits,
and will tell you what will be his
destiny for this world and his destiny
for the world to come, and will not
make five inaccurate prophecies out of
the 500. All this makes inc solicitous
in regard to young men, and l want to
make them nervous i'll regard to the
contraction Of unpayable debts. I give
you paragraph from my own expe-
rience.
My first settlement as pastor was in q
village. My salary was $500 and par
sonage. The amount seemed enormous
to ME. I said to myself, What, all this
for one year," I was afraid Of getting
worldly under so much prosperity. L
resolved to invite all the congregation
to my house i'll groups of 20 each. We
began, and as they were the best con-
gregation in all the world and we felt
nothing was too good for them, we
piled all the luxuries on the table. l
never completed the undertaking. At
the end of six months was i'll finan-
cial despair / found that we not only
had not the surplus of luxuries, but we
had struggle to get the necessities,
and I learned what every young man
learns, in time to save himself or toe
late, that you must measure the size OF
a mans body before you begin to cut
the cloth for his coat.
When young man willfully and of
choice, having the comforts OF life, goes
into the contraction of unpayable debts,
he knows not into what he goes. The
creditors get after the debtor, the pack
of hounds i'll full cry, and alas for the
reindeerl They jingle his doorbell be-
fore he gets up in the morning, they
Jingle his doorbell after he has gone to
bed at night. They meet him as he
comes off his front steps. They send
him postal card or letter in curtest
style, telling him to pay up. They at
tach his goods. They want cash or o
note at 30 days or note on demand.
They call him a knaye. They say he
lies. They want him disciplined in the
church. They want him turned out OF
the bank. They come at him from this
side and from that side and from be-
fore and from behind and from above
and from beneath, and he is insulted
and gibbeted and sued and dunned
and sworn at until he gets the nervous
dyspepsia, gets neuralgia, gets liver
complaint, gets heart disease, gets con-
yulsive disorder, gets consumption.
Now he is dead, and you say, "Of
course they will let him alone. Oh,
no! Now they are watchful to see
whether there are any unnecessary ex-
penses at the obsequies, to see whether
there is any useless handle on the cas-
ket, to see whether there is any surplus
plat Oh the shroud, to SEQ whether the
hearse is costly or cheap, to see whether
the flowers sent to the casket have been
bought by the family or donated, to see
in whose name the deed to the grave is
made out Then they ransack the bereft
household, the books, the pictures, the
carpets, the chairs, the sofa. the piano,
the mattresses, the pillow on which be
died. Cursed be debt! For the sake OF
your own happiness, for the sake OF
your good morals, for the sake of your
immortal soul, for Gods sake, young
man, as far as possible keep out OF it,
Irrciigious Young Men.
But I think more young men are
slaughtered through irreligion. Take
away young mans religion and you
make him the prey of evil. We all know
that the Bible is the only perfect system
of morals. Now, if you want to destroy
the young mans morals, take his Bible
away. How will you do that? Well, you
will caricature his reverence for the
Scriptures, you will take all those Incl.
dents of the Bible which can be made
mirth of = Jonah's whale, Samson's
foxes, Adam S rib. Then you will carl
cature eccentric Christians or inconsist-
ent Christians. Then you will pass OF as
your own all those hackneyed arguments
against Christianity which are as old as
Tom Paine, rs old as Voltaire, as old
as sin. Now you have captured his Bi-
Bile, and you have taken his strongest
fortress. Tie way is comparatively
clear, and all the gates of his soul are
set cpen in invitation to the sins OF
earth and the sorrows of death, thai
they may come in and drive the stake
for their enco- aent.
A steamer 1900 miles from shore,
with broken rudder and lost compass
and hulk leakiL., 80 gallons the hour, is
better off than young man when you
have robbed him Of his Bible. Have
you ever noticed how despicably mean
it is to take away the worlds Bible
without proposing substitute? 1t i:
meaner than to come to sick man and