The Yale expositor., 1899-02-24

anywhere, but peculiarly killing in the
jolt of a rail train. Put your railroad
guide and your Bible side by side
the one to show you the route through
this world, and the other to show you
the route to the next world. "Oh,"
you say, that is superfluous, for now
in all the hotels, in the parlor, you
will find Bible, and in nearly all the
rooms of the guests you will find one"
But. my brother, that is not your
Bible. You want your own hat, your
own coat, your own blanket, your own
Bible. But" you say, II am not a
Christian, and you ought not to ex-
pect me to carry Bible" My brother.
a great many people are not Chris
tians who carry Bible. Besides that,
before you get home you might be-
come q Christian, and you would feel
awkward without copy. Besides that,
you might get bad news from home.
/ see you with trembling hand open
ing the telegram saying. George is
dying" or Fannie is dead-come
homer oh, as you sit in the train,
stunned with the calamity, going
home, you will have no taste for fine
scenery or for conversation. and yet
you must keep your thoughts en-
ployed or you will go stark mad. Then
you will want a Bible, whether you
read 1t or not. 1t will be a comfort
to have 1t near you-that book full of
promises which have comforted other
people in like calamity. Whether you
study the promises or not, you will
want that book near you. Am l not
wise when l say put in the Bible?
"Oh," you can say, II have no taste
for reading" Now, that is the trouble,
but it is no excuse. There was time,
my brother, when You had no taste for
cigars; they made you very sick; but
you persevered until cigars have be-
come to you luxury. Now. if you
can afford TO struggle on to get bad
habit. is it not worth while to struggle
on to get a good habit like that Of
reading? l am amazed to find how
many merchants and commercial trav-
elers preserve their ignorance from
year to year, notwithstanding all their
opportunities. 1t was we'll illustrated
by one who had been largely success
full, 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
yard of civil law in old folio" There
is no excuse for man lacking infor-
nation, If he have the rare oppor-
tunities of a commercial traveller.
Improve your mind. Remember the
Learned Blacksmith" who, while
blowing the bellows, set his book
up against the brick work and be-
came acquainted with fifty languages.
Remember the scholarly Clifford, who.
while an apprentice, wrought out
the arithmetical problem with his
awl on q piece of leather Re-
member Abercrombie, who snatched
here and there a fragmentary five min
utes from an exhausting profession,
and wrote immortal treatises on ethics
Be ashamed to sell foreign fabrics
or fruits unless you know something
about the looms that woye them or
the vineyards that grew them. IN
derstand all about the laws that con-
troll commercial life; about banking,
about tariffs, about markets, about
about foreign people
their characteristics and their political
revolutions as they affect ours; about
the harvests of Russia, the vineyards
of Italy, the tea fields of China. Learn
about the great commercial corters OF
Carthage and Assyria and Phoenicia.
Read all about the Medici of Florence,
mighty in trade, mightier in philan-
thropies. You belong to the royal fam
lily of merchants; be worthy of that
royal family. Oh, take my advice, and
turn the years of WEAKNESS into years
of luxury. Take those hours you
spend at the depot waiting for the de-
layed train, and make them Pisgah
heights from which you can view the
promised land. When you are wait
ing for the train, hour after hour in
the depot. do not spend your time
reading the sewing machine advertise
mepts, and looking UP the timetables
of routes you will never take, going
the twentieth time to the door to see
whether the train is coming, bothering
the ticket agent and the telegraph OPP
orator with questions which you ask
merely because you want 10 pass away
the time. But rather summon up the
great essayists and philosophers and |
story tellers and thinkers of the ages,
and have them entertain you.
Again, l charge you, tell the whole
truth about everything you SELL Ly-
ing commercial travellers will precede
you; lying commercial travellers will |
come right after you into the same
store. Do not let their unfair compe
tition tempt you from the straight line.
1t is an awful bargain that a man
makes when he sells his goods and his
soul at the same time. A young man
in one Of the stores of New York was
some silks. He was binding
them up when he said to the lady