The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1898-02-16

pointing to the industrious hours on
clear and sunlit dial, the whole ma
chinery of body, mind, and earthly
capacity stops forever. Oak Hill and
Greenwood have thousands of business
men who died of old age at 80, 35, 40, 45.
Now, what is wanted is grace-divine
grace Tor ordinary business men, men
who are harnessed from morn till night
and all the days of their life--har-
messed in business. Not grace to lose
S1O0, 900, but grace to lose $40. Not
grace to supervise $50 employees in q
factory, but grace to supervise the
bookkeeper, and two statesmen, and the
small boy who sweeps out the store.
Grace to invest not the $S0,000 of net
profit, but the $4,000 of clear gain.
Grace not to endure the loss of a
whole shipload of spices from the
Indies, but grace to endure the loss
of paper of collars from the leakage
of displaced shingle on a poor roof.
Grace not to endure the hardness of
the American congress in passing a
necessary law, but grace to endure the
hardness of an errand boy stopping to
play marbles when he ought to deliver
the goods. Such grace as thousands
OF business men have to-day-keeping
them tranquil, whether goods sell or
do not sell, whether customers pay or
do not pay, whether tariff is up or
tariff is down, whether the crops are
luxuriant or dead failur.
Now, what ordinary business men
need is to realize that they have the
friendship of that Christ who looked
after the religious interests of Mat
thew, the custom house clerk, and
helped Lydia, of Thyatira, to sell the
dry goods and who opened bakery
and fish market in the wilderness of
Asia Minor to feed the 1909 who had
come out on religious picnic, and who
counts the hairs of your head with as
much particularity as though they
were the plumes of a coronation, and
who took the trouble to stoop down
with his finger writing on the ground,
although the first shuttle of feet OBJ
liberated the divine caligraphy, and
who knows just how many locusts
there were in the Egyptian plague,
and knew just how many ravens were
necessary to supply Elijah's pantry by
the brook Cherith, and who, as floral
commander, leads the regiments OF
primroses, foxgloves, daffodils, hya-
cinths, and lilies which pitch their
tents of beauty and kindle their camp
fires of color all around the hemisphere
that Christ and that God knows the
most minute affairs of your business
life and however inconsiderable, un-
derstanding all the affairs of that wo-
man who keeps a thread and needle
store as well as all the affairs of a
Rothschild and Barring.
Then there are all the ordinary farm
ers. We talk about agricultural life,
and we Immediately shoot off to talk
about Cincinnatus, the patrician, who
went from the plow to high position,
and after he got through the dictator
ship in 81 days went back again to the
plow. What encouragement is that tc
ordinary farmers? The vast majority
of them-none of them will be patri
clans. Perhaps none of them will be
senators. If any of them have dictator.
ships it will be over 40, or so, or 10(
acres of the old homestead. What
these men want is grace to keep theii
patience while plowing with balky
| fn f,,1 4 I,
drouth that destroys the corn crop, anC
that enables them to restore the gar
den the day after the neighbours cattle
have broken in and trampled out the
strawberry bed, and gone through the
Lima bean patch, and eaten up the
sweet corn in such large quantities
that they must be kept from the water
lest they swell up and die.
Grace in catching weather that en-
ables them, without imprecation, tc
spread out the hay the third time, al.
though again, and again, and again, il
has been almost ready for the NOW. A
grace to doctor a COW with a hollow
horn, and the sheep with the foot rot
and the horse with the distemper, anc
to compel the unwilling aeres to yield q
livelihood for the family, and schooling
for the children, and little extras tc
help the older boy in business, and
something for the daughters wedding
outfit, and little surplus for the time
when the ankles will get stiff with age
and the breath will be little short
and the swinging of the cradle through
the hot harvest field will bring on the
old mans vertigo. Better close up about
Cincinnatus. know 500 farmers just
as noble as he was. What they want
is to know that they have the friend
ship of that Christ who often drew His
SMILES from the farmers life, as wheI
He said "A sower went forth to SOW,
as when He built his best parable out
of the scene of farmer boy coming
back from his wanderings, and the ole
farm house shook that night with rura,
jubilee; and who compared Himself tc
a lamb in the pasture field, and who
said that the eternal God is farmer
declaring, my father is the husband
man."
Those stone masons do not want tC
hear about Christopher Wren, the arch
itect, who built st. Paul's cathedral. Il
would be better to tell them how tC
carry the hod of brick up the ladder
without slipping, and how on colo
morning with the trowel to smooth of
the mortar and keep cheerful, and how
to be thankful to God for the plair
food taken from the pail by the road
side. Carpenters standing amid thu