Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1898-02-19

ing ordinary circumstances. attending
to ordinary responsibilities.


Work For Christians.
Then there are all the ordinary bust
ness men. They need divine and Chris
tian help. When we begin to talk about
business life, we shoot right off and talk
about men who did business on large
scale and who sold millions Of dollars
of goods year, and the vast majority
of business men do not sell O million
dollars of goods, nor half million, nor
quarter of million, nor the eighth part
of million. Put all the business men
of our cities, towns, villages and neigh
borhoods side by side, and you will find
that they sell less than a hundred thou
sand dollars worth of goods. All these
men in ordinary business life want di-
vine help. You sec how the wrinkles
are printing on the countenance the
story of worriment and care. You cap-
not tell how old business man is by
looking at him. Gray hairs at 80; a
man at 40 with tho stoop of q nonoge-
marian. No time to attend to improved
dentistry; the grinders cease because
they are few. Actually dying of old age
at 40 or 30, when they ought to BIO at
the meridianl Many Of these business
men have bodies like neglected clock
to which you come, and when you wind
it up it begins to buzz and roar, and
then the hands start around very rapid
ly, and the clock strikes 5 or 10 or 40,
and strikes without any sense, and then
suddenly stops So is the body of that
wornout business man. 1t is a neglect
cd clock, and, though by some summer
recreation it may be wound up, still the
machinery is all out of gear. The hands
turn around with velocity that excites
the astonishment of the world.~> Men
cannot understand the wonderful activ-
ity, and there is q roar and buzz and
rattle about these disordered lives, and
they strike 10 when they ought to strika
5, and they strike IL when they ought
to strike G, and they strike 40 when
they ought to strike nothing, and sud-
denly they stop. Postmortem examina-
ton reveals the fact that all the springs
and pivots and weights and balance
wheels of health are completely de-
ranged. The human clock is simply
run down, and at the time when the
steady hand ought to be pointing to the
industrious hours On clear and sunlit
dial the whole machinery Of body, mind
and earthly capacity stops forever. Oak
Hill and Greenwood have thousands OF
business mon who died Of old age at
80, 35, 40, 40.
Wants of Business Life.
Now, what is wanted is grace-di-
vine grace for ordinary business men,
men who are harnessed from morn till
night and all the days Of their life
harnessed in business. Not grace to lose
500, 600, but grace to lose $40. Not
grace to supervise $50 employees in
factory, but grace to supervise the book
keeper and two statesmen and the small
boy that sweeps out the store. Grace to
invest not the $50, 900 of net profit, but
the 50, 500 of clear gain. Grace not to
endure the loss Of whole shipload Of
spices from the Indies, but grace to en-
dure the loss of paper of collars from
the leakage of displaced single on
poor roof Grace not to endure the tardi-
ness of the American congress i'll pass
ing a necessary law, but grace to endure
the hardness OF an errunu uuy suvrr:o
to play marbles when he ought to de-
liver the goods. Such grace as thou
sands of business men have today
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 a dead failure-calm in
all circumstances and amid all vicissi-
tudes. That is the kind of grace we
want.
Millions Of men want it, and they
may have it for the asking. Some hero
or heroine comes to town, and as the
procession passes through the street the
business men come out, stand on tlptoe
on their store step and look at some one
who in arctic cline, or in ocean storm,
or in day of battle, or in hospital ago.
MES did the brave thing, not realizing
that they, the enthusiastic spectators,
have gone through trials in business
life that are just as great before God.
There are men who have gone through
freezing arctics and burning torrids and
awful Marengos Of experiences with
out moving five miles from their door
step.
Christ'o Friendship.
Now, what ordinary business men
need is to realize that they have the
friendship of that Christ who looked
after the religious interests of Matthew,
the custom house clerk, and helped
Lydia of Thyatira to sell the dry goods
and who opened a bakery and tsh mar
ket in the wilderness of Asia Minor to
feed the 1000 who had come out on a
religious picnic aud who counts the
hairs of your head with as much partlc-
ularity as though they were the plumes
Of coronation, and who took the trou-
bic to stoop down with his finger writ
ing on thu ground, although the first
shuttle of feet obliterated the divine
CdllprdpUy, duu VIII AHOhS JNSS ~"
many locusts there were in the Egyp
tian plague, and knew just how many
ravens were necessary to supply Elijah S
pantry by the brook Cherith, aud who,
as floral commander, leads forth all the
regiments of primroses, foxgloves.
dafTodils, hyacinths and lilies which
pitch their trnts OF beauty and kindle
their campfires of color all around the
hemisphere that that Christ aud that
God knows the most ninute affairs OF
your business life and however incon-
siderable, understanding all the affairs
of that woman who keeps thread and
needle store as well Us all the affairs ct
q Rothschild and i Earring.
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 pillow to high position,
and after he got through the dictator
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