The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-07-30

poor. So that there have been scores
Of winters hen the poor had a harder
time than they did last winter. Weather
prophets say we will hay frosts this
summer which will kill the harvests.
Now. let me tell you, you have lied
twice about the weather, and I believe
you are lying this time.
Some people are so with
the d~olorousness OF the times that hey
say we shall have communistic out
in this country sue as they had
in France. I do not believe il. The
parallel does not run. They have no
| Sabbath, no Bible, no God in France.
We nave all these defenses for our
| American people, and public opinion is
such that if the people in this country
| attempt a cutthroat expedition they
will LAM in Sing Sing or from the gal
lows go up on tight rope. 1 do not be-
lieve the people Of this country will
ever commit outrages n riot and
murder for the sake of getting bread.
But all this lugubrosity Of tore and
face keeps people down. Now I will
make a contract. If the people of the
llnHsed States for one week will talk
cheerfully, I will open all the manufac-
tories, I will give employment to all the
unoccupied men and women, I will make
a lively market for your real estate
that is eating you up with taxes, I will
stop the long professions on the way
to the poorhouse and the penitentiary
and will spread a plentiful table from
Maine to California and from Oregon
to Sandy Hook, and the whole land
shall carol and thunder with national
jubilee. But save some one, Il will
take that contract, but we can't affect
the whole nation My hearers and
readers, representing as you do all pro
LESSONS, all trades and all occupations,
/ If chA,r11 racn1x-o pnx-ar n roi, 70 ~
ter a dOlOrous word about the money
markets, but by manner and by voice
and by wit and caricature and, above
all, by faith in God to try to scatter
this national gloom, do you not believe
the influence would be instantaneous
and widespread? The effect would be
felt around the world. For Gods sake
and for the sake Of the poor and for the
sake of the employed quit growing.
Depend upon it, if you men in comfort
able circumstances do not stop COM
planning, God will blast your harvests
and see how you will get along without
a corn crop, and he will sweep you with
floods, and he will devour you with
g~rasshoppers, and he will burn your.
city. If you men in comfortable circum-
stances keep on complaining, God will
give you something to complain about.
Mark that!
THE BEST INVESTMENT.
The second prescription for the allie
Walton of %inancia distresses is proper
Christian investment. God demands of
every individual state inc nation a GER
tain proportion of their income. We are
parismoniOus. We keep back from God
that which belongs to him, and when
we keep Jack anything from God he
takes what we keep back, and he takes
more. He takes it by storm, by sick
-oor hxy bor hy onxy An of f1n
$1,000 ways which he can employ. The
reason many of you are cramped in
business is because you have never
learned the lesson of Christian gener-
osity. You employ an agent. You give
him a reasonable salary, and, 10, you
find out hat he is appropriating your
funds, besides the salary. What do you
do? Discharge him.. Well, we are Gods
agents. He puts in our lands certain
moneys. Part is to be ours, part is to
be his. Suppose we take all, what then?
He will discharge us. He will turn us
over to financial disasters and take The
trust away from us. The reason that
great multitudes are not prOspered in
business. is simply because they have
been withholding from God that which
belongs to him. The rule is, give and
you will receive. administer literally
and you shall lave more to administer.
I am in full sympathy with the man
who was to be baptized by immersion,
and some one said, you had better
leave your pocketbOok out; it will get
wet" NO" said he; Il want to go
down under the wave with everything.
I want to consecrate my property and
all to Cl,d. And so he was baptized.
What we want in this country is more
baptized pocketbooks.
I had a relative whose business
seemed to be failing. Here a loss. and
there a loss, and everything was both
ering, ~preplexing and annoying him.
He sat down one day and said: God
must ave a controversy with me about
something. / believe I haven't given
enough to the cause Of Christ" And
there and the he took out his check
book and wrote a large check for a mis-
sionary society. He told me: THAT
was the turning point in my business.
Ever since then I have been prosper
Gus. From that very day-aye, from
that very hour-I saw the change"
And, sure enough, he went on, and he
gathered a fortune.
The only safe investment that a man
can make in this world is in the cause
Of Christ. If a man gives from a super
abundance, God may or he may not re-
spond with a blessing, but if a man
gives until he fells it, if a man gies I'M
til it fetches the blood, if a man give
until his ~selfishness cringes and twists
and overs under it, he will get not
only spiritual profit. but he will get
paid back in hard cash or in convertible
securities. We often see men who are
tight listed who seem get along with
their investments very p~rOitably, not
w~ithstanding all their parsimony. But
wait. Suddenly in that mans history
everything goes wrong. His health
fails, or his reason is dethrOned, or a
domestic curse smites him, or a mid
night shadow of some kind drops pon
his soul and upon his business. What
is the matter? God is Furnishing him
for his small heartedness. He tried to
cheat God, and God worsted him. So
that one of the recipes for the cure Of
individual and national finances is
more generosity. Where you bestowed
81 on the cause of Christ give s..
God loves to be trusted, and he is very
apt to trust hack again. He says:
Ii ANEi