The Monitor-register., 1897-07-30
ILIFE'S BRIGHT SIDE.
THREE PRESCRIPTIONS FOR THE CURE
OF BUSINESS DEPRESSION.

Rev. DIR. Tslmage breaches Sermon of
Business Cheer - Christian Investment.
Spiritual Awakening-A Warming -Life's
shipwrecks- of the Soul.
WASHINGTON, July 25.-This dis
course of DR.. Talmage shows how all
may help in the restoration of good
times, and is most appropriate. Text,
Lamentations iii, SO, Wherefore doth
living man complaint"
A cheerful interrogatory in the most
melancholy book of the Bible! Jere-
miah wrote so many sad things that we
have word named after him, and
when anything is surcharged with grief
and complaint we call it jeremiad.
But in my text jeremiah, as by a sud-
den jolt, wakens us to thankful spirit.
Our blessings are SO much more nu-
merous than our deserts that he is sur
prised that anybody should ever find
fault. Having life and with it thou
sand blessings it ought to hush into
perpetual silence everything like criti-
oism of the dealings of God. "Where-
fore doth living man complaint"
While everything in our national
finances is frightening, for the last few
years the land has been set to the tune
of Naomi" There has been here and
there cheerful soloist, but the grand
chorus has been one of lamentation, ac-
ananio6 Inv 1ir0oc ct,af tod
commerce, silent manufactures, unem-
ployed mechanism, and all those disor-
ders described by the two short words,
"hard times" The fact is that we have
been paying for the bloody luxury of
war more than 80 years ago. There
were great national differences, and we
had not enough Christian character to
settle them by arbitration and treaty,
and so we went into battle, expending
life and treasure and we'll nigh swamp
ing the national finances, and north and
south, east and west, have ever since
been paying for those four years in
diligence in barbarism.
But the time has come when this de-
preston ought to end-yea, when it
will end if the people are willing to
do two or three things by way of finan-
cial medicament, for the people as we'll
as congress must join in the work of
recuperation. The best political econo-
mists tell US that there is no good reason
for continued prostration. Plenty of
money awaiting Investment. The na-
tional health with never so strong an
arm or so clear brain. Yet we go Oh
groaning, groaning, groaning, as though
God had put this nation upon cruel and
allowed us but one decent breakfast in
six months. The fact is the habit of
complaining has become chronic in this
country, and after all these years of
whimper and wailing and objurgation
we are under such momentum of sniv-
ell that we cannot stop.
A Plea For CheerfuIness.
There are three prescriptions by which
believe that our individual and ma
tional finances may be cured of their
present depression. The first is cheerful
conversation and behavior I have no.
tlced that the people who are most vo-
ciferous against the day in which we
live are those who are in comfortable
circumstances. l have made inquiry of
those persons who are violent in their
jeremiads against these times, and 1
have asked them, "Now, after all, are
you not making living?" After some
hesitation and coughing and clearing
their throat three or four times they
say stammeringly, Yes" So that
with great multitude of people it is
not question of getting livelihood,
but they are dissatisfied because they
cannot make as much money as they
would like to make. They have only
$4,000 in the bank, where they would
like to have $4,0 900. They can clear in
ayear only So, 900, when they would like
to clear $40, 900, or things come out
just even. Or in their trade they get So
day when they wish they could make
81 or So. "Oh, says some one, "are
you not aware of the fact that there is a
great population out of employment,
and there are hundreds of the good fam
lilies of this country who are at their
wits end, not knowing which way to
turn?" Yes, l know it better than any
man in private life can know that sad
fact, for it comes constantly to my eye
and ear, but who is responsible for this
state of things?
Much of that responsibility l put
upon men i'll comfortable circumstances
who by an everlasting growing keep
public confidence depressed and new en-
terprises from starting out and new
houses from being built You know
very well that one respondent man can
talk 90 men into dependency, while one
cheerful physician can wake up into ex-
hilaration whole asylum of hypochon-
driacs. 1t is no kindness to the poor or
the unemployed for you to join in this
deploration. If you have not the wit
and the common sense to think of some
thing cheerful to say, then keep silent.
There is no man that can be independ-
emit of depressed conversation. The
medical journals are ever illustrating
1t. was reading of five men who re-
solved that they would make an ex-
pertinent and see what they could do
III the way OF depressing stout,
healthy man, and they resolved to meet
him at different points in his journey,
and as he stepped out from his house in
the morning in robust health one of
the five men met him and said: "Why,
you look very sick today. What is the
natter" He said: II am in excellent
health. There is nothing the matter. !"
But, passing down the street, he began
to examine his symptoms, and the sec
ond of the five men met him and said,
"Why, how bad you do lookp' "Well,
he replied, 81 don't feel very well. !"
After awhile the third man met him,
and the fourth man met him, and the
fifth man came up and said: "Why,
you look as if you had had the typhoid
fever for six weeks What is the mat
ter with you?' And the man against
whom the stratagem had been laid
went home and died. And if you meet
man with perpetual talk about hard
times and bankruptcy and dreadful
winters that are to come you break
down his courage. A few autumns ago,
as the winter was coming on, people
said: 1--WE shall have a terrible winter.
The poor will be frozen out this win
ter" There was something in the large
store of acorns that the squirrels had
gathered and something in the phases
of the moon and something in other
portents that made you certain we were
going to have hard winter. Winter
came. 1t was the mildest one within
my memory and within yours. All that
winter long do not think there was
an icicle that hung through the day
from the caves of the house. So you
prophesied falsely. Last winter was
coming, and the people said: "We shall
have unparalleled suffering among the
poor. 1t will be dreadful winter +"