Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1899-09-07
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
BUSINESS LIFE, LAST SUM-
DAYS SUBJECT.
A Lecture In Common Honesty-"Not
slothful In Business; Fervent in Spirit;
Serving the Lord"-Rom. 1911.
Copyright 1899 by Louis Klopsch.)

shall be conjoined? Oh, yes. There
is no war between religion and bust
ness, between ledgers and Bibles, be-
tween churches and country houses.
On the contrary, religion accelerates
business, sharpens mems wits, sweet
ems acerbity of disposition, fillips the
blood of phlegmatics, and throws more
velocity into the wheels Of hard work.
1t gives better balancing to the judg-
ment, more strength to the will, more
muscle to industry, and throws into
enthusiasm a more consecrated fire.
You cannot in all the circle Of the
world show me a man whose honest
business has been despoiled by re-
ligion.
The industrial classes are divided in
to three groups: producers, manufac-
turers, traders. Producers, such as
farmers and miners. Manufacturers,
such as those who turn corn into food,
and wool and fax into apparel. Trad
ers, such as make profit out of the
transfer and exchange of all that
which is produced and manufactured.
A business man may belong to any
one or all of these classes, and not
one is Independent of any other.
When the Prince Imperial of France
fell on the Zulu battlefield because the
strap fastening the stirrup to the sad
die broke as he chung to it, his COM
rades all escaping, but he falling under
the lances of the savages, a great
many people blamed the Empress for
allowing her son to go forth into that
battlefield, and other blamed the Eng
lish government for accepting the sac
rifice, and other blamed the Zulus for
their barbarism. The one most to
blame was the harnessmaker who fash
Toned that strap of the stirrup out OF
shoddy and imperfect material as 1t
was found to have been afterward. If
the strap had held, the Prince Imperial
would probably have been alive today.
But the strap broke. No prince indie
pendent of a harnessmaker! High,
low, wise, ignorant, you in one occu-
patton, l in another, all bound to-
gether. So that there must be one
continuous line OF sympathy with each
others work. But whatever your vo-
cation, if you have a multiplicity of
engagements, if into your life there
come losses and annoyances and per-
turbations as we'll as percentages and
dividends, if you are pursued from
Monday morning until Saturday night,
and from January to January by in
exorable obligation and duty, then you
are business man, or you are bust
ness woman, and my subject is appro-
pirate to your case.
Traders in grain come to know some
thing about foreign harvests; traders
in fruit come to know something
about the prospects of tropical produc-
ton; manufacturers of American
goods come to understand the tariff on
imported articles; publishers of books
must come to understand the new law
Of copyright; owners of ships must
come to know winds and shoals and
navigation; and every bale of cotton,
and every raisin cask, and every tea
box and every cluster Of bananas is so
much literature for a business man.
Now, my brother, what are you going
to do with the intelligence? Do you
suppose God put you in this school of
information merely that you might be
sharper in trade, that you might be
more successful as a wording? Oh,
no; 1t was that you might take that
useful information and use it for Jesus
Christ.
Can it be that you have been deal
Ding with foreign lands and never had
the missionary spirit. wishing the sal
walton of foreign people? Can it be
that you have become acquainted with
all the outrages inflicted in business
life and that you have never tried to
bring to bear that Gospel which is to
extirpate all evil and correct all
wrongs and illumine all darkness and
lift up all wretchedness and save men
for this world and the world to come /?
Can it be that understanding all the in
tricacies Of business you know nothing
about those things which will last after
all bills of exchange and consignments
and invoices and rent rolls shall have
Icrumpled up and been consumed in
the fires of the last great day? Can
it be that a man will be wise for time
and a fool for eternity?
/ remark, also, that business life is
school for Integrity. No man knows
what he will do until he is tempted
There are thousands of men who have
kept their integrity merely because
they never have been tested. A man
was elected treasurer of the State of
Maine some years ago. He was dis
tinguished for his honesty, usefulness
and uprightness, but before one year
had passed he had taken of the public
funds for his own private use, and was
hurled out of Office in disgrace Dis
tinguished for virtue before. Distin-
guished for crime after. You can call
over the names of men just like that,
in whose honesty you had complete
confidence, but placed in certain crises
of temptation they went overheard.
Never so many temptations to scoun-
drelism as now. Not law on the
statute book but has some back door
through which miscreant can escape.
All! how many receptions in the fab
ric of goods; so much plundering in
commercial life that if a man talk
about living life of complete CONNER
cial integrity there are those who as
cribe it to greenness and lack Of tact.
More need Of honesty now than ever
before, tried honesty, complete hon
esty, more than in those times when
business was a plain affair and wool