Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-08-16
On the soth of next April in the furni-

No wonder that SO many of our mer-
chants fail in business. They are swim
died into bankruptcy by these wander
ing Arabs. these nomads of city life
They cheat the grocer out of the green
apples which make them sick, the ply
sician who attends them during their
distress and the undertaken who fits
them cut for departure from the neigh
borhood where they owe everybody
when they pay the debt Of nature, the
only debt they ever do pay.
Commercial Ethics.
Now our young men are coming up
IL this depraved state OF commercial
ethics. and [ am so1icitous about them.
I want to warn them against being
slaughtered on the sharp edges of debt.
You want many things you have not,
nv Young friends. You shall have them
if you have patience and honesty and
industry. Certain lines of conduct al
ways lead out 60 certain successes.
There is a law which controls even
those things that seem haiasezard [
have been told By those who have OBJ
served that it is possible to calculate
just how many letters will be sent to
the dead letter office every year through
misdirection; that it is possible to cal
culate just how many letters will be de-
tanned for lack Of postage stamps through
the forgetfulness of the senders, and
that it is possible to tell just how many
people will fall in the streets by slip
ping on an orange peel. In other words,
there are no accidents. The most insig
nifcant event you ever heard of is the
link between two eternities-the eter-
nifty of the past and the eternity of the
future. Head the right way, young
man, and you will come out at the
right goal.
Bring me q young man and tell me
what his physical health is and what
his mental caliber and what his habits,
and I will tell you what will be his
destiny for this world and his destiny
for the world to come, and will not
make five inaccurate prophecies out of
the 800. All this makes me- solicitous
in regard to young men, and [ want to
make them nervous in regard to the
contraction of unpayable debts. I give
you a paragraph from my own expe-
rience.
My first settlement as pastor was in a
village. My salary was $500 and par
sonage The amount seemed enormous
to me- ] said to myself, ''What, all this
for one year!" I was afraid of getting
worldly under so much prosperity. l
resolved to invite all the congregation
to my house in groups of % each. We
began, and as they were the best con-
gregation in all the world, and we felt
nothing was too good for them, we
piled all the luxuries on the table. |
never completed the undertaking. At
the end of six months [ was in finan-
cial despair | found that we not only
had not the surplus of luxuries, but we
had a struggle to get the necessities,
and I learned what every young man
learns, in time to save himself or too
late, that you must measure the size Of
a maps body before you begin to cut
the cloth for his coat.
When q young man willfully and of
choice having the comforts of life, goes
into the contraction of unpayable debts,
he knows not into what he goes The
creditors get after the debtor, the pack
of hounds in full cry, and alas for the
reindeer! They jingle his doorbell be-
fore he gets up in the morning, they
Jingle his doorbell after he has gone to
bed at night. They meet him as he
comes Of his front steps. They send
him a postal card Or a letter in curtest
style, telling him to pay up. They at
tach his goods. They want cash or
note at SO days or note on demand.
They call him knave. They say he
n 1pli in 10
church They want him turned out of
the bank. They come at him from this
side and from that side and from be-
fore and from behind and from above
and from beneath, and he is insulted
and gibbeted and sued and dunned
and sworn at until he gets the nervous
dyspepsia, gets neuralgia, gets liver
gets heart disease, gets con-
vulsive disorder, gets consumption.
Now he is dead, and you say, "Of
course they will let him alone. " Oh,
no! Now they are watchful to see
whether there are any unnecessary ex-
penses at the Obsequies, to see whether
there is any useless handle on the cas-
ket, to see whether there is any surplus
plat on the shroud, to see whether the
hearse is costay or cheap, to see whether
the flowers sent to the caslzet have been
bought by the family or donated, to see
in whose name the deed to the grave is
made out. Then they ransack the bereft
household, the books, the pictures, the
carpets, the chairs, the sofa, the piano,
the mattresses, the pillow on which he
died. Cursed be debt! For the sake of
your own happiness, for the sake of
your good morals, for the sake of your
immortal soul, for Gods sake, young
man, as far as possible keep out of it!
Irreligious Young Men.
But | think mere young men are
slaughtered through irrelipiOn Take