The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-03-03

in the left hand. Goodby. May YOU
have a prosperous journey, large sales
/ forgot to ask o about! What train
are you going TO take? We'll" you say,
81 will take the 5 O'Clock Sunday after
snail save a day by that, and on Monday
morning I will be in the distant city, in
the commercial establishment. by the
time the merchants come down My
brother, you are starting wrong. If you
clip off something from the Lords day,
the Lord viii clip off something from
your lifetime success. sabbath DreaKing
pays no better for this world than 1t pays
for the next. There was a large estaD-
lishment in New York that said to a
young man: I'VE want you TO start to-
morrow afternoon-Sunday afternoon-a5
the young man, Il never travel on sun
day. wei said the head man of the
firm. you must go. We have got 10 MAKE
noon at 5 o'clock" The young man sald:
Il can't go; it is against my conscience.
can't go" We'll" said the nead msn
you situation. There are plenty OF men
who would like TO 60" The temptation
was too great for the young man, and ne
succumbed to it. He obeyed orders. He
left on the 5 o'clock train Sunday after
noon for Pittsburg. Do you want the
sequel in very short meter? That young
man has gone down into a life of dissipa-
ton. What has become Of the business
firm? B~ankrupt-one of the firm a con-
frIned gambler. Out of every week, get
: "a hours for yourself. Your employer,
young man, has no right to swindle o
out of that rest. The bitter curse Of AL
mighty God will rest upon that CONNER
cial establishment which expects Its en-
ployees to break the Sabbath. What
right has a Christian merchant to sit
! down in church on the Sabbath when his
clerks are travelling abroad through the
land on that day? Get up, professed
: Christian merchant, so acting. You have
no business here. Go out and call that
boy back. There was a merchant in 1887
who wrote: II should have been a dead
man had it not been for the Sabbath.
Obliged to work from morning. until
! night through the whole week, I felt on
Saturday, especially on Saturday after
noon, that 1 must have rest. 1t was like
going into a dense fog. Everything look
ed dark and gloomy as if nothing could
be saved. l dismissed all and kept the
Sabbath in the old way. On Monday, it
was all sunshine, but had it not been for
the Sabbath, I have no doubt I should
have been in my grave" Now, I say, If
the Sabbath is good for the employer, it
is good for the employee. Young man,
the dollar that you earn on the Sabbath
is a redhot dollar, and If you put it into
a bag with 5000 honest dollars, that red
hot dollar will burn a hole through the
bottom of the bag and let out all the
5000 honest dollars with it.
HOW TO OCCUPY TINE.
But I see you change your mind, and
you are going on Monday morning. and
I see you take the train-Pennsylvania,
or the Baltimore and Ohio, or the Hud-
! son River, or the Erie, or the Harlem, or
the New Haven train. For a few weeks
now you will pass half of your time in
the rail train. How are o going to oc-
. cupy the time? Open the valise and take
out a book and begin to read. Magnificent
opportunities nave our commercial travel
ers for gaining information above all
other clerks or merchants! The best
place in the world to study is a rail
train. I know it by experience. Do not
do as some commercial travellers do-as
many of them do, as most of them do
over again and all the advertisements
through and through then sit for two or
three hours calculating the profits they
three hours lookingly listlessly out of the
window, then spending three or four
hours i'm the smoking car, the %nastiest
place in Christendom, talking with men
who do not know as much as you do.
Instead of that call William Shakespeare,
the dramatist, and John Ruskin, the es-
sayest, and Tennyson, the poet, and Ban
croft and Macaulay, the historians, and
Ezekiel and Paul, the inspired men of
God, and ask them to sit with you and
talk with you as they will if you ask
could get out of this business of COM
mercial travelling. L don't like it," My
brother why don't you read yourself out?
lect and good eyesight and let him de-
vote to valuable reading the time not
actually occpied in commercial errand,
and in six years he will be qualified for
any position for which he is ambitious.
oh" you say, Il have no taste for
reading!' Now, that is the trouble, but
it is no excuse. There was a time, my
brother, when you had no taste for cigars
they made you very sick, but you per-
severed until cigars nave become to you
a luxury. Now, if you can afford to
struggle on to get a bad habit, is it not
worth while to struggle on to get a good
hnhjt s1yn fIn4 81 ~~o-ol
to find how many merchants and COM
mercial travellers preserve their ignorance
from year to year Notwithstanding al
their opportunities. It was we'll illus
tated by one who had been largely sue
cessful and who wanted the show of a
library at home, and he wrote to a book
merchant in London, saying, Send me
six feet of theology and about as much
metaphysics and near a yard of civil law
in old folio!" There is no excuse for a
man lacking information if he have the
rare opportunities of a commercial trav.
eler. Improve your mind Remember the
} Learned Blacksmith" who, while blow.
ing the bellows, set his book up against
the brickwork and became acquainted
with fifty languages. Remember the
scholarly Clifford, who. while an appren-
tlce, wrought out the ~arithmetical prob
lem with his awl on a piece of leather
Remember Abercrombie, who snatchec
here and there a fragmentary five min
utes from an ~exhausting profession an
wrote immortal treaties on ethics.
; STUDY LAWS AND COMMERCE.
Be ashamed to sell foreign fapr1cs OF
fruits unless you know something abour
the looms that wove them or the vine.
yards that grew them. Understand al
about the laws LAT control commercial
life, about banking, about tariffs, abou
markets, about navigation, about for
eign people-their characteristics and
their political revolutions as they affect
ours; about the harvests Of Russia, thu
vineyards of Italy, the teafields of China
Learn about the great commercial cen
tres of Carthage n Assyria n Phoeni
cia. Read all about the Medici of Flor
, ence, mighty in trade, mightier in phi
!anthropics. You belong to the royal fam
lily. Oh, take my advice and turn the
: years of WEAKNESS into years of luxury
: rake those hours you spend at the depo
! waiting for the delayed train and max,
!. them P1shgah heights from which vol
. can view the promised land. When yol
: are waiting for the train hour after hou
, in the depot, do not spend your time read
ing the sewing machine advertisement
n looking up the time tables of route
{ you will never take, going the twentieth
, time to the door to see whether the trai,
9 is coming, bothering the ticket agen
, and telegraph operator with question