The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1899-10-05
BUSINESS TRIALS.
DR.. Talmage Shows How They Re
fine the Spirit.
Religion in Trade-The Merchanta
Office a School of Industry, Pa
tience. Integrity md Up
right Living.
copyright, 1899, by Louis Klopsch.]
Washington,

luit ItlfSloH Illdy Bc tdhSH iito al tHS
affairs of life, and instead of being a
hindrance, as many think, is re-
enforcement. The text is Romans IL:
IL: 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 conjoined? Oh, yes. There is
no war between religion and business,
between ledgers and Bibles, between
churches and counting houses. On the
| contrary, religion accelerates business,
sharpens mems wits, sweetens acerbity
of disposition. fillips the blood of phleg-
matics and throws more velocity into
the wheels of hard work. 1t gives bet
ter balancing to the judgment, more
strength to the will, more muscles to
industry and throws into enthusiasm a
more consecrated fire. You cannot in
all the circle of the world show me a
despoiled by religion.
| The industrial classes are divided into
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. Traders,
such as make profit out of the transfer
and exchange of all that which is pro-
| duced and manufactured. A business
man may belong to any one or all OF
these classes, and not one is independ-
ent of any other.
When the prince imperial of France
fell on the Zulu battlefield because the
strap fastening the stirrup to the saddle
broke as he clung to it, his comrades
all escaping, but he falling under the
lances of the savages, a great many
people blamed the empress for allow
ing her son to go forth into that bat
tlefield, and others blamed the Eng
lish 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 it as found
to have been afterward. If the strap
had held, the prince imperial would
probably have been alive to-day. Bu
the strap broke. No prince independ
ent of harness maker! High, low
wise, ignorant. you in one occupation
/ in another. all bound together.
So that there must be one continuou!
line of sympathy with each other:
work. But whatever your vocation
if you have a multiplicity of engage
ments, ifinto your life there come losses
and annoyances and perturbations a
well as percentages and dividends, i
you are pursued from Monday morning
until Saturday night, and from Januar.
to January by inexorable obligation
and duty, then you are a business man
or you are business woman, ant
) my subject is appropriate to you
case.
We arc under the impression that tn
, moil and tug of business life are a pris
, on into which man is thrust, o
that it is an unequal strife, where un
armed man goes forth to contend.
shall show you this morning that busi
ness life was intended of God for gram
! and glorious education and discipline
and if shall be helped to say what
want to say l shall rub some of th
| wrinkles of care out of your brow an
unstrap some of the burdens from you
back. l am not talking of an abstrat
ton. Though never having been i
, business life, I know all about bus
= ness men. In my first parish at Belle
Vile, N. j., ten miles from New Yorl
, a large portion of my audience wa
!, made up of New York merchants. The
= went to Syracuse, place of immens
), commercial activity, and then | wer
= to Philadelphia and lived long anon
the merchants OF that city. than whol
there are no better men on earth, an
for 25 years l stood at my Brookly
pulpit, Sabbath by Sabbath, preachin
. to audiences the majority of whom wei
business men and business women.
is not an abstraction of which 1 speal
but a reality with which / am well a
; quainted.
2 In the first place, l remark tn;
f business life was intended as scho
. of energy. God gives us a certai
{. amount of raw material out of which v
L are to hew our character. Our facu
q ties are to be reset, rounded and shar
ened up. Our young folks having gra
uated from school or college need
!, higher education. that which the ras
= ing collision of everyday life alone c;
y effect. Energy is wrought out on
in the fire. After man has been
business activity 10, 20, 30 years, b
energy is not to be measured by weigh
or plummets or ladders. There is !
height it cannot scale, and there is ]
depth it cannot fathom, a1d there is
obstacle it cannot thrash.
Now, MY brother, why did God P
you in that school Of energy? Was
merely that you might be yardsti