The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1902-03-27

the intellectual forces for onset and vic
| tory.
Again remark that godliness is profit
| able for ones disposition. Lord Ashley,
| before he went into a great battle, was
heard to offer this prayer: 30 Lord, shall
be very busy to-day! If | forget Thee, for
get me not" With such Christian dispo-
sition as that a man Is independent of all
circumstances.
Our piety will have tinge of our natural
temperament. If man be cross and sour
| and fretful naturally after he becomes a
Christian he will always have to be armed
I against the rebellion OF those evil inclina-
tions.
But religion has turned the widest ma
lures 1t has turned fretfulness into graf
itude, dependency into good cheer, and
those who were hard and ungovernable
and uncompromising have been made pill
able and conciliatory.
Good resolution, reformatory effort, will
not effect the change. 1t takes a mightier
arm and a mightier hand to bend evil hab-
its than the hand that bent the bow of
Ulysses and it takes stronger lasso than
ever held the buffalo on the prairie.
A manufacturer cares but very little for
stream that slowly runs through the
meadow; but values a torrent that leaps
from rock to rock and rushes with mad
the sea. Along that river you will find
futtering shuttles and grinding mill and
flashing water wheel And a nature the
swiftest, the most rugged and the most
tremondous-tha is the nature that God
turns into greatest usefulness.
Religion will give an equipoise of spirit.
1t will keep you from ebullitions of tenn
per, and you know a great many fine bust
nesses have been blown to atoms by bad
will l-onr, fror
about frequent loss; it will keep you back
from squandering and from dissipation;
it will give you a kindness of spirit which
will be easily distinguished from that mere
store courtesy which shakes hands violent
ly with you, asking about the health of
your family, when there is no anxiety to
know whether your child is well or sick,
but the anxiety is to know how. many
dozen cambria pocket handkerchiefs you
will take and pay cash down. 1t viii pre-
pare you for the practical duties of every
day life.
In New York City there was a merchant,
hard in his dealings with his fellows, who
had written over his banking house or his
counting house room, "No compromise"
Then when some merchant got in a crisis
and went down-no fault of his, but con-
junction Of evil circumstances-and all the
other merchants were willing to compro-
mise-they would take seventy-tive cents
on the dollar or fifty cents or twenty cents
coming to this man last of all, he said:
'No compromise I'll take 100 cents on the
dollar, and | can afford to wait" Well,
the wheel turned, and after awhile that
man was in crisis of business, and he sent
out his agent to compromise. and the agent
said to the merchants, will you take
you take anything" Gwen take 100 cents
on the dollar NO compromise" And the
man who wrote that inscription over his
counting house door died in restitution.
Oh we want more of the kindness of the
gospel and the spirit Of love in our business
enterprises!
How many young men have found in the
religion of Jesus Christ practical help!
How many there are to-day who could tes-
tify out of their own experience that god
illness is profitable for the life that now isl
There were times in their business career
when they went here for help and there
for help and yonder for help and got no
help until they llnelt before the Lord cry
ing for His deiiverance, and the Lord res
cued them.
In a bank not far from New York-a
village bank-an officer could not balance
his accounts He had worked at them day
after day, night after night, and he was
sick nigh unto death as a result. He knew
that he had not taken one farthing from
that bank, but somehow, for some reason,
inscrutable then, the accounts would not
balance The time rolled on and the morn
ing of the day when the books should pass
under the inspection of the other officers
arrived and he felt himself in awful peril,
conscious of his own integrity, but unable
to prove that integrity. That morning he
went to the bank early, and he knelt down
before God and told the whole story of
mental anguish, and he said: 80 Lord,
have done right, I have preserved my in
tegrity, but here 1 am about to be over
thrown unless Thou shouldst come to my
rescue Lord, deliver me-" And for one
hour he continued the prayer before God,
and then he arose and went to an old blot
ter that he had forgotten all about. He
opened it, and there lay a sheet of figures
which he only needed to add to another
line of figures-some line of figures he had
forgotten and knew not where he had laid
them-and the accounts were balanced, and
the Lord delivered him. You are an inf
del if you do not believe it. The Lord de-
livered him. God answered his prayer, as
He will answer your prayer, oh, man OF
business, in every crisis when you come to
Him.
Now, if this be so, then I am persuaded,
as you are, of the fact that the vast major
ity of Christians do not fully test the value
Oh lilGlI IGIlgiODs utS uiC llNS q loi iASt
in California with $4,000 acres of good
wheat land and culturing only quarter of
an acre.
Why do you not go forth and make the
rel gion of Jesus Christ practical affair
every day of your business life and all this
year, beginning now, and tomorrow morn
ing putting into practical effect this holy
religion and demonstrating that godliness
is profitable here as well as hereafter?
How can you get along without this re-
ligion? Is your physical health so good you
do not want this divine tonic? Is your
mind so clear, so vast, so comprehensive,
that you do not want this divine inspira-
ton? Is your worldly business so thor
oughly established that you have no use
for that religion which has been the help
and deliverance of tens of thousands OF
men in crises of worldly trouble? And If
what | have said is true then you see what
a fatal blunder it is when man adjourns
to lifes expiration the uses of religion.
man who postpones religion to sixty years
of age gets religion fifty years too late. He
may get into the kingdom of God by final
repentance, but what can compensate him
for whole lifetime unalleviated and I'M
10 n