The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1897-09-02
FINANCIAL DISTRESS.
Rev. DR.. Talmage Prescribes for
It's Alienation.
Cheerful Bcha vior and Conversation, Prop
er Christian Investment and
Great Spiritual A wakenins
the Remedies.

| ne 1OtlOWlng discourse DV heV L.
Dewitt TaImage indicates how all may
aid in restoring good times 1t is based
on the text:
Wherefore doth living man complain?-La-
| mcntations, i'll. 49,
A cheerful interrogatory in the most
melancholy book of the Bible! Jere-
miah wrote so many sad things that
we have a word named after him, and
when anything is surcharged with
grief and complaint, we call it a jere-
miad. But in my text, Jeremiah, as
by a sudden jolt, wakens US to a thank
full 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 q thou
sand blessings it ought to hush into
perpetual silence everything like crit
icisn of the dealings of God. ''Where-
fore doth living man complain?'
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 lam
entation, accompanied by dirges over
Frustrated commerce, silent manufac-
tories, unemployed mechanism, and
all those disorders 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 ma
| ~ 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 swamping
the national finances; and north and
south, east and west have ever since
been paying for those tour years in
dulgence in barbarism.
There are three prescriptions by
which | believe that our individual and
national finances may be cured of their
present depression. The first is cheer
full conversation and behavior. l have
noticed that the people who are most
vociferous against the day in which we
live are those who are in comfortable
circumstances. | have made nquiry
of those persons who are violent in
their jeremiads against these times,
and | have asked them: Now, after
all, are you not making living?"
After some hesitation and coughing,
clearing their throat three or four
times, they say, ay,stammeringly "Y-e-s." "
So that with a great multitude
of people it is not question of getting
a livelihood, but they are unhappy and
dissatisfied because they can not make
as much money as they would like to
make. They have only $4,000 in the
bank, where they would like to have
$1,000. They can clear in a year only
SIS, 900, when they would like to clear
$40, 900, or things come out just even.
Or in their trade they get three dollars
day when they wish they could make
four dollars or five dollars. "Oh!' says
some one, "are you not aware of the
fact that there is great population
out of employment, and there are hun
dreds of the good families of this coun-
try who are at their wits end, not
knowing which way to turn?" Yes,
| 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 responsible ty l put
upon men in comfortable circumstan
ces, who, by an everlasting growing,
keep public confidence depressed and
new enterprises from starting out and
| new houses from being built. You
, knew very we'll that one despondent
man can talk SO men into dependency,
while one cheerful physician can wake
up into exhilaration a whole asylum o1
hypochondriacs. 1t is no kindness tc
the poor or the unemployed for you tc
Join in this deploration. If you have
not the wit and the common sense tc
think of something cheerful to say,
then keep silent. There is no man
that can be independent of depressed
conversation. The medical journal.
are ever illustrating it. was readin s
4 of five men who resolved that they
e would make an experiment ant
e see what they could do in the
;, way of depressing stout, health,
J., man, and they resolved to NEE
4 him at different points in his journey
8 aud as he stepped out from his house
n in the morning in robust health. on
/ of the five men met him and said
:. ''Why, you look very sick to-day. Wha
I is the natter" He said: II am in ex
g cellent health; there is nothing the
matter" But passing down the street
he began to examine his symptoms
and the second of the five men me
e him and said: why, how bad yo
n look" Well" he replied, II don
t feel very WELL" After awhile tn
. third man met him, and the fourth ma
;. met him, and the fifth man came u
I. and said: why, you look as if yo
b had had the typhoid fever for 81
$, weeks. What is the matter wit
o you?" And the man against whor
9 the stratagem had been lai
j. went home and died. An
d if you meet man with perpetual tai
!. about hard times and bankruptcy an
l dreadful winters that are to come, yo
, break down his courage. A few a.
tumns ago, as the winter was cemin