The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-08-17

ureS from the producer 2Qey can az
ford to make nothing, or actually lose,
ON some styles of goods, assured they
can make ii UP on others. So, a great
dry goods house goes outside of its reg
ular line and sells books at cost or less
than cost, and that swamps the book
sellers; 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 that all along the bust
ness streets Of all cur cities thSre 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 business as he can manage.
NEED OF DIVINE SUPPORT.
To feel right and do under all Ii
pressure requires martyr grace, re-
quires divine support, requires celes-
tial 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 consisten-
cy, n after awhile their success will
come. There is generally r~etribution
in some form for greediness. The own
ers OF the big business will die, and
their boys will get possession of the
business, n with a cigar in their
mouths, and full to the chins with the
best liquor, n behind a pair of spank
ing bays, they will pass everything
on the turnpike roa to temporal 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 a famous business
house, and the firm will say: we
have enough money for all our needs
of our children. Now let us dissolve
business n make way for other men
in the same line" Instead of being
startled at a solitary instance of mag
nanimity, it will become a common
thing. / know of scores of great bust
ness houses that have had their oppor-
tunity of vast accumulation and who
ought to quit. But perhaps for all the
days OF this generation the struggle
of small houses to keep alive under the
overshadowing pressure OF great mousse
Will continue; therefore, taking things
as they are, you will be wise to pre-
serve your faith and brow over all the
counters n shelves and casks the
measuring line of divine right. '.And
the Lord said unto me, Amos, what
i ALI Il Sdlu, - pluIIlD
line"
BEGIN AT THE TOP.
In the same w a we need TO rectify
our t~heologies. All sorts of religions
are putting for their ~pretensions. Some
have a ~Spiritulastic religion, and their
chief work is with ghosts, and others
a religion of political economy, pro-
posing to put an end to human misery
by a new style of taxation, and there
is a humanitarian religion that looks
after the bodies of men and lets the
soul look after itself, and there is a
Legislative religion that proposes to
rectify all wrongs by enactment of
better laws, and there is an aesthetic
religion hat by rules of exquisite taste
would lift the heart out of its deform-
tiles, and religions of all sorts, relig-
ions by the peck, religions by the
square foot and religions by the ton
all of them devices of the devil that
would take the heart away from the
only religion that will ever effect any
thing for the human race, and that is
the straight up and down written in
the boo which begins with Genesis
and ends with Revelation, the religion
of the skies the old religion, the God
given religion, the everlasting religion,
which says Love God above all and
your neighbor as yourself" All relig-
ions but one begin at the wrong end
and in the wrong place. The Bible re-
ligion demands that we first get right
with God. 1t begins at the top and
measures down, while the other relig-
ions begin at the bottom and try to
measure up. They stand at the foot
of the wall, up to their knees in the
mud of human theory and speculation
and have a plummet and a string tied
fast to it, and they throw the plummet
this way n break a head here
and brow the plummet another way
and break a head there, n then they
throw it up, and it comes down upon
their own pate. Fools! Why stand
at the foo of the wall rectifying UP
when you ought to stand at the top
rectifying down? I vas in h country,
thirsty after a long walk. And I came
in, and my child was blowing soap
bubbles, and they rolled out of the cup
blue and gold and green and spark
ling and beautiful and orbicular, and
in so small a a ] never saw more
splendor concentrated. But she blew
once too often, and all the glory van
ished into suds. Then I turned and
took a glass of water and was refresh
ed. And so far as soul thirst is con-
cerned I put against all the blowing,
gEttering soap bubbles OF worldly re-
form and human speculation one draft
from the fountain from under the
throne Of God clear as crystal. Glory
be to God for the religion that drops
from above, not coming UP from be-
meath! And the Lord said unto me,
Amos, what seest thou? And I said
A plumb line"
THE ONLY RELIGION.
1 want you to notice h fact, that
when a man gives up the straight up
and down religion Of the Bible for a
any new tangled religion, it is general
ly to his sins. You first hear Of
his change of religion, and h you
"a of some swindle he has practiced
in a special mining stock, telling some
n if he will put in $4,000 he a take
out 500, 900; or he has sacrificed his
integrity or plunged into irremediable
worldliness. His sins are sc 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, well done,
| good and faithful and thai