The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1897-08-20
ATALK TO YOUNG MEN
DR.. TALMAGE ON THE EVILS OF GOING
IN DEBT.

IN DEBT.
Destructive Influences of Society-Keep-
ing Up Appearances-Tem ofCity
Life-Dangers of the Wine Cup-Christ
the Friend of Struggling Humanity.
New YORK, Aug. 15.-Dr. Talmage
In his sermon for today shows how run
ming into hopeless debts and skepticism
have undone young men in town and
country. The text is Proverbs vii, 20,
"As an OK to the slaughter. 3"
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 rich pasture field of
clover where all day long he will revel
in the 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 doorway, where he is fas-
tened, and with we'll aimed stroke the
AK fells him, and so the anticipation of
the redolent pasture field is completely
disappointed. So many young man
has been driYen on by temptation to
what he thought would be paradisiacal
enjoyment, but after awhile influences
with darkor hue and swarthier arm
close in upon him, and he finds that in
stead of making an excursion into
garden he has been driven "as an OK to
the slaughter.
~ Society to Blame.
We are apt to blame young men for
being destroyed when we ought to
blame the influences that destroy them.
Society slaughters great many young
men by the behest: "You must keep up
appearances. Whatever be your salary,
you must dress as we'll as others, you
must give wine and brandy to as many
friends, you must smoke as costly cigars,
you must give as expensive entertain
ments and you must live in as fashion
able boarding house. If you haven't
the money, borrow If you can't Dor
row, make false entry or subtract here
and there a bill from bundle of bank
bills. You will only have to make the
deception little while In a 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 your
self will not be damaged By that aw-
full process 100, 900 men have been
slaughtered for time and slaughtered
for eternity.
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 Oh a borrowed
dollar. But there are two kinds of Dor
rowed money. money borrowed for the
purpose of starting or keeping up legiti-
mate enterprise and 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 a coat however plain,
and then you borrow money for dan
dy's outfit, you have taken the first rev.
olution of the wheel down grade Bor-
row for the necessities; that may be |
we'll. Borrow for the Injuries; that
tips your prospects over in the wrong
direction
The Bible distinctly says the borrow
er is servant of the lender. 1t is a bad
state of things when you have to go
down some other street to escape meet
ing some one whom you owe. If young
men knew what is the despotism of be- !
ing i'll debt, more of them would keep
out of it. What did debt do for Lord .
Bacon, with mind towering above the .
centuries? 1t induced him to take brides
and convict himself as criminal be-
fore all ages. What did debt do for
Walter Scott, broken hearted at Abbots-
ford? Kept him writing until his hand .
gave out in paralysis to keep the sheriff .
away from his pictures and statuary.
Better for him if he had minded the
maxim which he had chiseled over the
fireplace at Abbotsford, Waste not
want not
Going In Debt.
The trouble is, my friends, that peo-
pie do not understand the ethics of 60
ing in debt, and that if you purchase
goods with no expectation of paying for
them, or go into debts which you can
not meet, you steal just so much money.
If l go into a grocer's store and l buy
sugars and cCffees and meats with no
capacity to pay for them, and no inten-
ton Of paying for them, l am more dis
honest than if l go into the store, and
when the grocer's face is turned the
other way fill my pockets with the
articles of merchandise and carry off a
ham. In the one case l take the mer-
chant S time, and take the time of his
messenger to transfer the goods to nv
house, while in the other case | take
none of the time of the merchant, and
L wait upon myself, and transfer the
goods without an trouble to him. In
other words. a 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
meatshops and apothecaries. They owe
everybody 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 Mean
IA 10 ba IL. /