Connecticut western news., 1899-08-31
LEDGERS AND BIBLES
THERE IS NO WAR BETWEEN RELl-
 GiON AND BUSINESS.

1ioN ANU 6OSINESS.
 pr. Talmage Declares That Right
 eousness Is q Re-enforcement and
 Not Hindrance In the Affairs Of
 Life.
 s tCopyright. Louis Klopsch. 1s99.l
 WASHINGTON, Aug. 27-In this dis course Dr. Talmage argues that re- ligion may be taken into all the affairs of life and instead of being a hin drance, as many think, is n re-enforce- ment. The text is Romans xii, II: Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord."
 Industry, devoutness and Christian service--all commended in that short text. What! Is it possible that they shall be conjoinedf Oh, yes! There Is no war between religion and busi- ness, between ledgers and Bibles, be- tween churches and counting houses. On the contrary, religion accelerates business, sharpens mems wits, sweet ems acerbity of disposition, fillips the blood of phlegmaties and throws more velocity into the wheels of hard work. It 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 flax into apparel Trad CTS, 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 dle broke as he clung to it, his com radss ali escaping, but he falling un- der the lances of the savages, a great many people blamed the empress for allowing her son to go forth into that battlefield, and others blamed the Eng fish government for accepting the sac rifice, and others blamed the Zulus for their barbarism. The one most to blame was the harness maker who fashioned 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. Al, ly>I pendent of a harness maker! High, low, wise, ignorant, you in one occupa- ton, I in another, all bound scgether So that there must be one continuous line of sympathy with each others work. But whatever your vocation, if you have a multiplicity of engage ments, if into your life there come loss es and annoyances and perturbations as well as percentages and dividends. if you are pursued from Monday morn ing until Saturday night and from January to January by memorable ob- ligation and duty, then you are busi ness man. or you are a business wo- man, and my subject Is appropriate to your case.
 Grand and Glorious.
 We are under the impression that the moil and tug of business life are prison into which man Is thrust or that 1t is an unequal strife where un~ armed a man goes forth to contend. I shall show you this morning that business life was intended of God for grand and glorious education and dis cipline, and if,I shall be helped to say what I wNpt to say I shall rub some of the wrinkles of care out of your brow and unstrap some of the burdens from your back. I am not talking of an abstraction. Though never having been In business life, know all about business men.
 In my first parish at Belleville, N. J., ten miles from New York, large DOT ton of my audience was made up of New York merchants. Then went to Syracuse, O place of immense conner cial activity, and then went to Phila- delphia and lived long among the mer- chants of that city, than whom there are no better men on earth, and for 25 years I stood In my Brooklyn pulpit, Sabbath by Sabbath, preaching to au- diences the majority of whom were
  is not an abstraction of which speak. but a reality with which I am we'll ac- quainted.
 In the first place, remark that busi- ness life was intended as a school of energy. God gives us a certain amount of raw material out of which we are to hew our character. Our faculties are to be reset, rounded and sharpeped up. Our young folks having graduated from school or college need a higher education, that which the rasping and collision of everyday life alone can ef- feet. Energy is wrought out only in the fire. After man has been in busi- ness activity 10, 20. 30 years, his ener- plummets or ladders. There is no height 1t cannot scale, and there is no depth 1t cannot fathom, and there is no obstacle it cannot thrash.
 Now, my brother, why did God put you in that school of energy? Was It merely that you might be yardstick to measure cloth or a steelyard to weigh flour? Was 1t merely that you might be better qualified to chaffer and higgle? No. God placed you in that school of energy that you might be developed for Christian work. If the undeveloped talents in the Chris tian churches of today were brought out and thoroughly harnessed, I be- lieve the whole earth would be con verted to God in twelvemonth. There are SO many deep streams.that are turning no mill wheels and that are f1arnessed to no factory bands.
 God Demands the Best.
 Now, God demands the best lamb out of every flock. He demands the richest sheaf of every harvest. He de- mands the best men of every genera tion. A cause in which Newton and Locke and Mansfield toiled you and l can afford to toll in. Oh, for fewer