Connecticut western news., 1900-08-16


 understandings with other merchants and will sell at ruinous cost putting their neighbors at great disadvantage, expecting to make up the deficit In something else. If an honest principle could creep into that mans soul, 1t would die of sheer loneliness! The man twists about, trying to escape the penalty of the law, and despises God, while he Is just a little anxious about the sheriff. The honest man looks about him and says: Well, this rivalry Is awful. Perhaps I am more scrupu- lous than 1 need be. This little bar gain I am about to enter is a little doubtful, but then I shall only do as the rest" And so I had friend who started in commercial life, and as a book merchant, with a high resolve. He said, "In my store there shall be no books that would not have my family read" Time passed on, and one day went into his store and found some iniquitous books on the shelf, and said to him, How Is 1t possible that you can consent to sell such books as theseT "Oh," he replied, ''I have got | over those Puritanical notions! A man cannot do business In this day unless he does 1t in the way other people do it." To make a long story short, he lost his hope of heaven, and in little while he lost his morality, and then he went into a madhouse. In other words, when a man casts off God, God casts him off.
 One of the mightiest temptations in commercial life in all cities today Is in the fact that many professed Chris tian men are not square in their bar | gains. Such men are in Baptist and Methodist and Congregational church. es, and our own denomination Is as | largely represented as any of them. Our good merchants are foremost In | Christian enterprises; they are patron izers of art, philanthropic and pa | triotic. God will attend to them In the | day of his coronation. I am not speak | ing of them, but of those in commer- cial life who are setting a ruinous ex- | ample to our young merchants. Go | through all the stores and offices In our cities and tell me in how many l of those stores and offices are the prin- ciples of Christ's religion dominantf | In three-fourths of them? No. In half of them? No. In one-tenth of | themP No. Decide for yourself. The | impression Is abroad somehow that l charity can consecrate iniquitous gains and that if man give to God | a portion of an unrighteous bargain then the Lord will forgive him the rest. | The secretary of benevolent society | came to me and said, "Mr So-and-so
 has given a large amount of money to | the missionary cause" mentioning the | sum. I said, 'I can't believe it." He | said, Tt Is so." Well, I went home, | staggered and confounded. I never knew the man to give anything. But | after awhile I found out that he had
 been engaged in the most infamous
 kind of a swindle, and then he prom
 ised to compromise the matter with
 the Lord, saying: "Now, here is so
 much for thee, Lord. Please to let | me offv'
 1 Political Reform.
 l I want to tell you that the church
 of God Is not a shop for receiving
 stolen goods, and that, If you have taken anything from your fellows, you
 had better return 1t to the men to
 whom it belongs. In a drug store in ] Philadelphia a young man was told that he must sell blacking on the Lords day. He said to the head man of the firm: 'I can't possibly do that. I am willing to sell medicines on the Lords day, for I think that Is right and necessary; but I can't sell this patent blacking." He was discharged from the place. A Christian man hear ing of 1t took him Into his employ, and he went on from one success to an- | other until he was known all over the land for his faith in God and his good | works as for his worldly success. When a man has sacrificed any tenn poral, financial good for the sake of | his spiritual interests the Lord Is on ais side, and one with God is a ma | lority.
 But if you have been much among l the cities you have also noticed that
 they are full of temptations of politi-
 cal character. It Is not so more in one
 city than in all the cities. Hundreds of
 men going down In our cities every
 year through the pressure of politics.
 Once in awhile a man will come out in
 3 sort of missionary spirit and say, '1
 am going into politics now to reform
 them, and 1 am going to reform the
 ballot box, and am going to reform
 all the people I come in contact with"
 That man in the fear and love of God
 goes into politics with that idea and
 with the resolution that he will come
 out uncontaminated and as good as
 when he went In, but generally the
 case Is, when a man steps into politics,
 many of the newspapers try to blacken
 his character and to distort all his past
 history, and after a little while has
 gone by, instead of considering himself
 an honorable citizen, he Is lost In con-
 temptation and In admiration of the
 fact that he has so long been kept out
 of jail! If a man should go into poli-
 tics to reform politics and with the
 right spirit, he will come out with the
 right spirit and unhurt. That was
 Theodore Frelinghuysen of New Jer-
 sey. That was George Briggs of Mas
 sachusetts. That was Judge Mclean
 of Ohio.
 Then look around and see the allure
 ments to dissipated life. Bad books,
 unknown to father and mother, vile as
 the reptiles of Egypt, crawling Into
 some of the best of families of the
 community, and boys read them while
 the teacher is looking the other way or
 at recess or on the corner of the street
 when the groups are gathered. These
 books are read late at night. Satan
 finds them smooth plank on which he
 can slide down into perditlon some of
 your sons and daughters. Reading bad
 books, one never gets over 1t. The
 books may be burned, but there Is not
 enough power in all the apothecary's 1 preparations to wash out the stain