Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1902-11-06

guessed 1t from the specimens 1 have
seen travelling In Holland"
SHINING Away From Home.
An average man can commit as rule
twenty sins away from home, when he
is travelling alone, In a railroad train, or
stopping alone in a hotel, or living
alone with strangers, far more easily,
with less risk Of injury to his position
and reputation, than one sin when he
is being watched by his employers
eyes or when he Is in daily companion
ship with Christian mother, wife or
child. 1t makes an immense amount
of difference how locomotive will act
when it Is on the down grade whether
or no the engineer has perfect control
over its powerful Westinghouse brakes.
1t makes All immense amount Of diff
ference with some Of us when we are
heading toward the open drawbridges
of sin whether or no we have our loved
ones near by, who are ready to reach
out their hands to help us close the
throttles and apply the spiritual brakes,
so that we can halt before we have
gone too far and it Is too late to try
to stop
But though the swift moving currents
of daily influences in a commercial
travellers life are apt to flow in the
wrong direction when he is away from
home, yet that is no valid excuse for
his yielding to temptation. In the first
place, God has distinctly declared that
he will never allow any temptation to
come nigh us which is greater than we
can bear, If we will only throw our
selves upon his mercy and plead and
continue to plead for divine strength.
Mighty as are the temptations the com
mercial traveller meets when he is away
from home, the divine power which is
at his disposal is infinitely stronger. 1t
can triumph over every opposing force.
But there Is still another reason why
the commercial traveller should not
yield to the temptations which he
meets away from home. The modern
knight of the grip is naturally stroD-
ger man, mentally, morally and physic-
ally, than the average man who Is
compelled to stay at home and work.
1t takes brains and lots of brains, to
be able to sell goods away from home.
The time is past when the great mer-
chants think that any drunken, gam
bling. disappearing employee Is good
enough to go upon the road. The EN-
ployers today demand that their COM
mercial travellers be nsen of character,
of brain, men with the moral stamina
70 nd
the mere fact that you are q com
mercial traveller is proof positive that
you have character enough. by the
grace of God, to be able to resist any
temptation which you may meet in
your travels.
Temptati1rs assail the commercial
| traveller alike whe1 he is buoyed up
with great success and when he is
discouraged by great financial de-
preston, wher. he is thrown of his
guard by exultation or disheart-
ened by a long succession of bit
ter disappolntments. Many CONNER
cial travellers do not receive a reg
ular guaranteed salary. They work on
q system of commissions. The more
goods they sell the more money they
receive. The less goods they dispose of
the less income they have. The aver
age commercial travellers income is apt
! to ebb and flow like the tides. In one
town the knight of the grip may sell
thousands of dollars worth of goods.
In every store he enters he finds a
! large purchaser. In another town he
may not even meet expenses. Thea,
| when the average commercial traveller
has what he calls a run OF luck. he il
apt to be unduly elated. and that Ella
ton is often the means Satan uses to
trip him up. The imminent dangers OF
exultation and disappointment are the
Charybdis and the Scylla which every
commercial traveller has to face
Now, my friend. you who spend most
of your life selling goods upon the
road, l want to warn you against the
dangers which come from either exul-
tation or encouragement Henry Ward
Beecher cured one of his parishioners
of the temptation of entering into Wall
street speculations by an experiment
The pastor Of Plymouth church asked
his friend not to gamble in stocks
for at least three years. During those
three years Mr.. Beecher wanted him
to make study of the stock market
Every time he thought stocks were go
Ing up he was to make memorandum
Of the same and decide how much he
wanted to buy and every time he
thought he ought to sell stocks to make
a memorandum of the same. Then. al
1 the end of three years, Mr. BeecheI
said, Count up your results and fine
out where you would have stood II
these purchases and sales had actually
been made" This the parishioner did
as Mr.. Beecher desired. At the end OF
three years he found out that If he had
entered Wall street and spcculated as
banl1rupted ten times over. YOU my
commercial friend, may learn the same
lesson. You do not have to expert
nent yourself, but you may see In the
lives Of other commercial travellers the
results Of allowing either exultatior
or dependency to overcome you. Re
call the history of those commercial
ira velers whom you have known FOL
the last five or ten years. want yor
to try to remember all the drinkers ant
carousers who started out with yor
upon the road. Almost without excep
ton, you know they have lost their pc
.,tAt To- 4