The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-02-17

for accommodation, for facility. for in.
their head and in their management there
are as much interest and moral worth as
nefarious, then, the behavior OF those
who bring disrepute upon this venerable,
benignant God honored institution
be @e aiS4 the abuserz fy in the face of
divine goodness which seems determined
to bless this land. We are having a Sc
The wheat gamblers get hold Of the
wheat gamblers get hold of the wheat,
and the corn gamblers get mold OF the
ward this land is put back by those great
bikes OF dishonest resistance. When God
provides enough food and clothing to
princes, the scramble of dishonest men
to get more than their share, and get 1t
at all hazards. keeps everything shak-
ing. What next?' Every week makes
new revelations. How many more bank
presidents and bank cashiers have been
and how many more bank directors are
In imbecfle silence, letting the perfidy
go on, the great and patient God only
knows! My opinion rs that We have got
near the bottom. The wind has been
pricked from the great bubble of Ameri-
can speculation. The men who thought
tina the judgment day was at least 5000
years off found it in 1898 OF 1887 OF 1886.
And this nation has been taught that
men must keep their hands out OF other
peoples pockets. Great business built
on borrowed capital have been obliteR-
ated. and men who had nothing have
lost all they had. L believe we are start
this land has ever seen, If, and If, and II.
CAUTION TO SPECTATORS.
If the first men, and especially Chris
tfan men, will learn never to speculate
upon borrowed capital-if you have a
mind to take your own money and turn
In all into kites TO fy them over every
common in the United States, you do
society no wrong, except when you tum-
house for the public to take care of. But
you have no right to a the money
of others and turn it into kites. There is
one word Tat has deluded more people
into bankruptcy and state prison and ruiz
than any other word in commercial life.
and that is the word borrow. That one
word is responsible for all the defalca-
lions and embellishments and financial
considerations of the last twenty years.
When executors conclude to speculate
with the funds of an estate committed to
their charge, they do not p%urloin; they
say they only borrow. When a banker
makes an overdraft upon his institution,
he does not commit a theft; he only bor-
rows.
When the officer of a COMPANY by
flaming advertisement in some religious
papers and gilt certificate of stock gets
Il multitude of country people to put
their small earnings into an enterprise
for carrying on some .undeVeloped moth
1nS, ne OOeS not 1fduOulenIiy take tne1r
money; he only borrows. When a young
man with easy access to his employers
money drawer or the confidential clerk
by close p~ropinquity to the account
books takes a few dollars for a Wall
street excursion, he expects to put it
back. He will put it back. He will put it
Why, When You are going to do wrong,
pronounce so long a word as borrow, a
word Of six letters, when you can get a
shorter word more descriptive of the re-
a1itu a word of nn1U five 1attnrS tho
word steal?
There are times when we all borrow
and borrow legitimately and borrow with
mon on the Mount enjoinS, From him
that would borrow of thee turn not thou
away" A young man rightly borrows
money to get his education. Purchasing
q house and not able to pay down IN
cash, the purchaser rightly borrows it on
mortgage. Crises come in business, when
it would be wrong for a man not to bor-
row. But 1 roll this warning through all
these aisles, over the backs of all these
pews, never borrow to ~speculate-not a
dollar, not a cent, not a farthing. Young
men, l warn you by your worldly pros
poets and the value of your immortal
souls, do not do it. There are breakers
Hanways, the Needles, the Caskets, the
| Douvers, the Anderlos, the Skerries-
and many a craft has gone to pieces On
those rocks, but | have to ten you that
all the Hanways and the Needle and
the Caskets and the Skerries are as moth
ing compared with the long line of
breakers which bound from the ocean of
commercial life north, south, east and
west, with the white foam of their de-
spair and the dirge of their damnation.
the breakers Of borrow.
| FAITH AND REPENTANCE NECES-
SARY.
If L had only a worldly weapon to
use on this subject. L would give you
the fact, fresh from the highest author
ity, that 80 per cent. of those who go
;~t@ It'll t;0o lorA oil but II
have "a better warning than a worldly
! warning. From the place where men have
p perIsdhed off2 XXhst mlnd' n sInitst discuss GT;
must step aside on this question. Faith
and repentance are absolutely necessary
but faith and repentance are no more
doctrines of the Bible than commercial
integrity. Render to all their dues
owe no man anything" And while I
mean to preach faith n repentance,
more and more to preach them l do not
mean to spend any time in chasing the
Hittites and Jebusites and G~irgashites
of Bible times when there are so many
women for time and for eternity. The
| greatest evangelistic preacher the world
ever saw, a man who died for his evan
mans, Provide things honest in the sight
OF all men," wrote to the Corinthians
p P that which :7J is honest;' W fbinss to the the
honest" wrote to the Hebrews, will
ing in all things to live honestly" The
Bible say that faith without works is
| dead, which, being literally translated,
means tha if your business Life does
| not correspond with your profession your
religion is a humbug.
There is something that needs to be
| sounded into the ears of all the young
men of America, and iterated and re-
| iterated, if this county is ever to be
delivered from it's calamities and com
| mercial prosperity is to be established
and perpetuated: Live within your
means. Spend no more thar you make
| And let us adjust all our business and
our homes by the principles of the
Christian religion. Our religion, ought
to mean just as much On Saturday and
Monday as on the day between and moi
to be a mere periphrasis of sancity. OuI
religion ought to first clean our hearts
and then it ought to clean our lives
Religion is not, as some seem to think
a sort of church dedication, a kind OF
confectionery, a sort of spiritual cara
mel, or holy gumdrop, or sanctified pep.
perment. or theological anaestretic. 1t s
an o~mnipotent principle, all controlling
all conquering. You may get along with
something less than that. and you may
l deceive vDurSp1f with it but Won cannot