The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-08-27
DESPOTISM OF DEBT.
Rev. DR.. Talmage Gives Sound Ad-
vice to Young Men.
There Is No Wrong in Borrowing; the
Wrong Lies In Borrowing TO Secure
That Which Oae Can Get
Along without Having.

The following discourse by Rev. T.
Dewitt Talmage contains good advice
20 young men on the evils of recklessly
running into debt. The text is:
As an OK to the slaughter. vii, p
There is nothing in the voice or man
ner of the butcher to indicate to the OK
that there is death ahead. The OK
thinks he Is going on to a rich pasture
field of clover where all day long he
will revel herbaceous luxuriance; but
after awhile the men and. the boys
| close IN upon him with sticks and
stones and shouting, and drive him
through bars and into a doorway,
where he is fastened, and with we'll
aimed stroke the AK fells him; and so
the anticipation of the redolent pas
ture field is completely disappointed.
So many young man has been driven
on by temptation to what he thought
would be paradisiacal enjoyment; but
after awhile influences with darker hue
and swarthier arm close in upon him,
and he finds that instead of making an
excursion into a garden he has been
driven las an OK to the slaughte."
We are apt to blame young men for
being destroyed when we ought to
blame the influences that destroy them.
Society slaughters a great many young
men by the behest: You must keep up
appearance; whatever be your salary,
you must dress as well as others, you
must give wine and brandy to as many
friends, you must smoke as costly CT
gars, You must give as expensive enter
tainments, and you must live in as
fashionable boarding house. If you
haven't the money, borrow. If you
can't borrow, make a false entry, or
subtract here and there a bill from a
bundle of bank bills; you will only
have to make the deception a little
while; in few months, or in a year or
two, you can make all right. Nobody
will be hurt by it, nobody will be the
wiser. You yourself will not be dam
aged. by that awful process a hun
dred thousand men have been slaugh-
tered for time and slaughtered for eter-
nifty.
Suppose you borrow. There is moth
ing wrong about borrowing money.
There is hardly man who has not
sometimes borrowed money. Vast es-
tates have been built on borrowed
collar. But there are two kinds of bor-
vowed money: Money borrowed fer the
purpose of starting or keeping up
legitimate enterprise or expense, and
money borrowed to get that which you
can do without. The first is right, the
other is wrong. If you have money
enough of your own to buy coat,
however plain, and then you borrow
money for Il dandy's outfit, you have
taken the first revolution of the wheel
down grade. Borrow for the uecessi-
ties; that may be well. Borrow for
the Injuries; that tips your prospects
over in the wrong direction.
The Bible distinctly says the bor-
rover is servant of the lender. 1t is a
bad state of things when you have to
go down some other street to escape
meeting some one you owe. Il young
men knew what is the despotism of
being in debt, more of them would
keep out of it. What did debt do for
Lord Bacon, with 2. mind tower
ing above the centuries? 1t in
duced him to take brides and con-
Wet himself as a criminal be-
fore all ages. What did debt do for
Walter Scott? Broken nearted at Alb
botsford. Kept writing until his hand
gave out in paralysis to keep the
sheriff away from his pictures ard
statuary. Better for him if he had
minded the maxim which he had CHS
eled over the fireplace at Abbotsford,
"Waste not, want not"
TTha frot, h1a iS nv
pie do not understand the ethics If GO
ing in debt, and that if you pu rasc
goods with no expectation of paying
for them, or go into debts which you
can not meet, you steal jusl so much
money. If | go into a grCcer's store
and L buy sugars and coffees aud meats
with no capacity to pay for them, and
no intention of paying Tor them, L am
more dishonest than if l go toto the
store, and when the grocer's face is
turned the other way fill my pockets
with the articles of merchandise End
carry off a ham! In the one case L
take the merchants time, and l take
the time of his messenger to transfer
the goods to my house. while in the
other case l take none of the time of
the merchant, and l wait upon myself,
and / transfer the goods without any
trouble to himl In other words,
sneak thief is not so bad as man who
contracts debts he never expects to
pay.
Yet, in all our cities there are fami-
lies who move every May-day to get
into proximity to other grocers and
meat shops and apothecaries. They
owe every body within half a mile of
where they now live, and next May
they will move into a distant part of
the city, finding a new lot of victims.
you, the honest family in
the new house, are bothered day by
lay by the knocking at the door of
bakers and butchers, and
Try goods dealers, and newspaper car
riers, and you are asked where your
is. You do not know.
1t was arranged you should
not know. Meanwhile your prede-
lessor has gone to some distant part of
the city, and the people who have any
Thing to sell have sent their wagons |
and stopped there to solicit the ''vaiu- |
able custom of the new neighbor, |
and he, The new neighbor, with great |
and an air of affluence.
orders the finest steaks and the highest i
priced sugars. and the best of the /
canned fruits, and perhaps all the |
And the debts will keep |
on accommodating until he gets his goods /
IN the SOth of next April in the furiture |
art.
No wonder that so many of our mer-
chants fail in business. They are
,windle'l into bankruptcy by these
Arabs, these nomads of city |
life. They cheat the grocer out of the /
green apples which make them sick,
.he physician who attends them dur /