The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-11-09
DR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.


l less risk of injury to his position anu reputation. than one sin when he Is be- i ing watched by his employers eyes or when he is in daily eompanionship with a Christian mother. wife or child. IL makes an immense amount of difference how a locomotive will act when 1t is on the down grade whether or no the engl- neer has perfect control over Its power l full Westinghouse brakes. It makes an immense amount of difference with som. of us when we are heading toward the i open drawbridges of sln whether or no we have our loved ones near by, who are ready to reach out their hands so i fhat we can halt before we have gone i too far and 1t is too late to try to stop.
 But though the swift moving currents of daily influences in a commercial trav- eler's life are apt to flow in the wrong direction when he Is away from home, yet that is no valid excuse for his yield ing 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 ourselves on His mercy and plead and continue to plead for divine strength. Mighty as are the temptations the commercial traveller meets when he is away from home, the divine power which is at his disposal is infinitely stronger It 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 stronger man, men tally morally and physically, than the average man who Is compelled to stay at home and work. It takes brains, and | lots of brains, to be able to sell goods [, away from home. The time Is past when great merchants think that any drunken, gambling, blaSpheming em- ploye is good enough to go upon the i road. The employers today demand that
 their commercial travellers be men of character, of brain, men with the moral stamina to say yes and mo- And, young
 man, the mere fact that you are a com
 mercial traveller is proof positive that I you have character enough, by the grace of God, to be able to resist any
 temptation which you may meet in your l travels.
 Temptations assail the commercial l traveller alike when he Is buoyed up with 1 great success and when he Is dis couraged by great financial depression. when he is thrown off his guard by ex- ultation or disheartened by long suc- cession of bitter disappointments. Many commercial travellers do not receive a regular guaranteed salary. They work on a 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 average commercial travellers income is apt to ebb and flow like the tides Tn one own the knight of the grip may sell thou sands of dollars worth of goods Tn ey- cry store he enters he finds a large pur- chaser. In another town he may not even meet expenses. Then, when the average commercial traveller has what he calls a run of luck he is apt to be unduly elated and that elation 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 trav- eler 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 l which come from either exultation or | Encouragement Henry Ward Beecher cured one of his parishioners of the temptation of entering Wall street spec ulations by an experiment. The pastor l of Plymouth church asked his friend not
 to gamble in stocks for at least three | years. During those three years MT
 Beecher wanted him to make a study l of the stock market. Every time he thought stocks were going up he was to make a memorandum of the same and decide how much he wanted to buy and | l stocks to make memorandum of the same. Then, at the end of three years, MT. Beecher said, Count up your re- l suits and find out where you would have stood If these purchases and sales had l actually been made" This the parish- l toner did, as Mir. Beecher desired. At l the end of three years he found out that If he had entered Wall street and specu- | lated as he wished to do he would have
 been bankrupted ten times over You, | my commercial friend, may learn the
 same lesson. You do not have to expe-
 riment yourselves but you may see in
 the lives of other commercial travellers
 the results of allowing either exultation
 or despondency to overcome you Re-
 call the history of those commercial 1 travellers whom you have known for the
 last five or ten years. want you to try to remember all the drinkers and | carousers who started out with you up- on the road. Almost without exception, | you know ahey have lost their positions and are living in comparative poverty or are lying in drunkards graves Now, my friend dare you, as an intelligent man, have run any such risks? Dare you in any circumstances drink or dissipate, no matter how intense may be your dis appointments or how exultant your joy? Dangers threaten a modern commer- , cial travellers life because his mind is often beclOuded on account of physical debilitation. To be a really successful commercial traveller a young man ought to have a physical constitution of iron. He ought to have the same kind of bone ! and muscle and snew which made the | knights of old famous He ought to be | able to digest any kind of food, sleep in hard or soft beds, sleep on a hall lounge l or on a chair, or lying upon the bare wooden seat of the caboose of a freight l raj m T1n 1o1af tO ba ohI to I1x winter to catch the 1 o'clock train for
 the next town, He ought to be able to
 assimilate irregular meals, and have his
 nightly rest broken up once or Twice, | and sometimes even thrice by the chang.
 ing of cars, and yet be cheerful and hap
 py and sell his goods just the same dur
 Ing the day Alas. I well know what are the physical difficulties of a travel | CTS life! For many years, off and on have travelled around the country as A | lecturer. l have had to suffer all these | trials, and have met and talked with the knights of the grip in many a lonely station in the midnight hour while wait | Ing for a belated railroad connection.
 You Must Pay the Price.
 But, even under the very brightest of | conditions and even though a mans backbone may seem to be made of steel, nature will assert itself. A commercial traveller must always pay the price and 1 have his physical frame rebel at th., hardships which it has been made to 1 suffer. and so during those times of physical exhaustion a commercial tray- eler. on account of the physical becloud- | -r | t-