Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1900-08-09
that they would quit business ton

/
purchased an article, 1t gives me more
dismay than satisfaction. | know 1t
means the bankruptcy and defalcation
| OF men in many departments. The
men who toll with the brain need full
as much sympathy as those who toll
with the hand. All business life is
struck through with suspicion, and
panics are the result OF want of con-
| fidence.
The pressure to do wrong is strong
er from the fact that in our day the
| large business houses are swallowing
| up the smaller, the whales dining on
bluefish and minnows. The large
houses undersell the small ones, be-
cause they buy in greater quantities
and at lower figures from the pro-
Queer. They can afford to make moth
ing, or actually lose, on some styles
of goods. assured they can make 1t up
on others. So, great dry goods house
goes outside of its regular line and
sells books at cost or less than cost,
and that swamps the booksellers; or
the dry goods house sells bric-a-brac
| at lowest figures, and that swamps
the small dealer in bric-a-brac. And
the same thing goes on in other styles
of merchandise, and the consequence
is chat all along the business streets
of all our cities there are merchants
of small capital who are in terrific
struggle to keep their heads above
water. The ocean liners run down
the Newfoundland fishing smacks
This is nothing against the man who
has the big store, for every man has
as large a store and as great a busi-
ness as he can manage.
Need of Divine Support.
To feel right and do right under all
this pressure requires martyr grace.
requires divine support, requires ce-
lestial reinforcement. Yet there are
tens of thousands of such men getting
splendidly through. They see others
going up and themselves going down,
but they keep their patience and their
courage and their Christian consist
eency, and after awhile their success
will come. There is generally retribu-
ton in some form for greediness. The
owners of the big business will die,
and their boys will get possession of
the business, and with a cigar in their
mouths, and full to the chins with the
best liquor, and behind a pair of
spanking bays, they will pass every
thing on the turnpike road to tenn
poral and eternal perdition. Then the
business will break up and the smaller
dealers will have fair opportunity. Or
the spirit of contentment and right
feeling will take possession of the
large firm, as recently with famous
business house. and the firm will say:
I'VE have enough money for all our
needs and the needs of our children.
Now let us dissolve business and make
way for other men in the same line"
Instead of being startled at solitary
instance of magnanimity. it will be-
come common thing. | know of
scores of great business houses that
have had their opportunity of vast ac-
emulation and who ought to quit.
But perhaps for all the days Of this
generation the struggle of small
houses to keep alive under the over
shadowing pressure of great houses
will continue; therefore, taking things
as they are. you will be wise to pre-
serve your faith and throw over all
the counters and shelves and casks the
measuring line Of divine right. And
the Lord said unto me. Amos, what
seest thou? And / said, A plumb
line"
The Only Religion.
I want you to notice this fact, that
when man gives up the straight up
and down religion of the Bible for any
new tangled religion, 1t is generally to
suit his sins. You first hear of his
change OF religion, and then you hear
of some swindle he has practiced in
special mining stock, telling some one
if he will put in $4,000 he can take
out 100000; or he has sacrificed his
integrity or plunged into irremediable
worldliness. His sins are SO broad
he has to broaden his religion, and he
becomes as broad as temptation. as
broad as the souls darkness, as broad
as hell. They want a religion that
will allow them to keep their sins
and then at death say to them. We'll
done, good and faithful servant" and
that tells them. "All is well, for there
Is no hell" What a glorious heaven
they hold before us! Come, let us go
in and see it. There are Herod and
all the babes he massacred. There are
Charles Guiteau and Robespierre, the
feeder of the French guillotine, and all
the liars, thieves, house burners, gar
rioters, piekpockets and libertines of all
the centuries. They have all got crowns
and thrones and harps and scepters.
and when they chant they sing.
Thanksgiving and honor and glory
and power to the broad religion that
let's us all into heaven without re-
pentance and without faith in these
humiliating dogmas of ecclesiastical
old fogyism.''
My text gives me grand opportun-
ity OF saying useful word to all young
men who are now forming habits for
lifetime. or what use to a stone-
mason or bricklayer is plumb line?
Why not build the wall by the unaided
eye and hand? Because they are in
sufficient, because If there be deflec-
ton in the wall it cannot further on
be corrected. Because by the law of
gravltaton wall must be straight IN
order to be symmetrical and safe. A
young man is in danger Of getting a
defect in his wall of character that
may never be corrected.
One Of the best friends ever had