The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1899-1900, 1899-07-26

tempted to throw on personal respon-
sibilitics, shifting it to the institution
to which they belong. Directors in
banks and railroad and insurance COM
panies sometimes shirk responsibility
underneath the action of the corpora
tion, and how often, when some bank
ing house OF financial institution ex-
plodes through fraud, respectable men
in the board of directors say: why, l
thought all was going on in Al honest
way, and am utterly confounded with
this demeanor!" The banKA and the
fire and life and marine insurance COM
panies and the railroad companies will
not stand up for judgment in the last
day, but those who in them acted
righteously will receive, each for him
self, a reward, and those who acted the
part of neglect or trickery will, each
for himself, receive a condemnation.
Unlawful dividends are not clean be-
fore God because there are those asso-
ciated with you who grab just as big
pile as you do. He who countenances
the dishonesty of the firm or of the cor
poration or association takes upon him
self all the moral liabilities. If the
financial institution steals, he steals.
If they go into wild speculations, he
himself is gambler. If they needless
ly embarass creditor he himself is
guilty of cruelty. If they swindle the
uninitiated, he himself is a defrauder.
No financial institution ever had
money vault strong enough, or credit
stanch enough, or dividends large
enough, or policy acute enough to hide
the individual sins of its members. The
old adage that corporations have no
souls is misleading. Every corpora
tion has as many souls as it has mem
bcrs.
Again, many business men have been
tempted to postpone their enjoyments
and duties to future season of entire
leisure. What sedative the Christian
religion would be to all our business
men if instead of postponing its uses
10 old age or death they would take it
into the store or factory or worldly en-
gagements now! 1t is folly to go amid
the uncertainties of business life with
no God to help. A merchant in New
England village was standing by
horse, and the horse lifted its foot to
stamp it in pool of water, ana the
merchant, to escape the splash, stepped
into the door of an insurance agent,
and the agent said: Il suppose you
have come to renew your fire insur-
ance." "0h!" said the merchant. II
had forgotten that" The insurance
was renewed, and the next day the
house that had been insured was
burned. Was it all accidental that the
merchant, to escape splash from
horses foot, stepped into the insurance
office? No, it was providential. And
what mighty solace for business
man to feel that things are providen
tall What peace and equilibrium in
such consideration, and what grand
thing if all business men could realize
it!
Many, although now comparatively
Strengthened in worldly circumstances,
have goodly establishment in the fu-
ture planned out. They have an i'm
agination built, about 20 years ahead,
a house in the country not difficult of
access from the great town, for they
will often have business or old accounts
to settle or Investments to look after.
The house is large enough to accommo-
date all their friends. The halls are
wide and hung with pictures of hunt
ing scenes and branch of antlers and
are comfortable with chairs that can
be rolled out on the veranda when the
weather is inviting or set out under
some of the oaks that stand sentinel
about the house, rustling in the cool
breeze and songful with the robins.
There is just land enough to keep them
interested, and its crops of almost fab
ulous richness springing up under ap-
plication of the best theories to be
found in the agricultural journals. The
farm is well stocked with cattle and
horses and sheep that know the voice
and have kindly bleat when one goes
forth to look at them. In this blissful
abode their children will be instructed
in art and science and religion. This
shall be the old homestead TO which the
boys at college will direct their letters,
and the hill on which the house stands
will be called 0akwood or Ivy hill or
Pleasant Retreat or Eagle Eyrie. May
the future have for every business man
here all that and more besides! But
are you postponing your happiness to
that time? Are you adjourning your
joys? Suppose that you achieve all you
eXpect-and that the vision mention
is not up to the reality, because the
fountains will be brighter, the house
grander and the scenery more pictur-
csque-the mistake is none the less fa-
tai.
Yet some of those sharpest at bar
gain are cheated out of their immortal
blessedness by stratagems more palpa-
BILE than any drop game" of the street.
They make investments in things ever
lastingly below par They put their
valuables in a safe not fireproof. They
give full credit to influences that will
not be able to pay one cent on the dol
lar. They plunge into labyrinth from
which no bankrupt law or "two-thirds
enactment will ever extricate them.
They take into their partnership the
world, the flesh and the devil, and the
enemy of all righteousness will boast
through eternal ages that the man who
in all his business life could not be out.
witted at last tumbled into spiritual
defalcation and was swindled out of
Heaven.
Perhaps some of you saw the fire in
New York in 1885. Aged men tell us
that it beggared all description. Some
stood on the housetops of Brooklyn
and looked at the red ruin that swept
down the streets and threatened TO
nh1ifarnfa kba d. A. -.