The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-11-09

ItntE4 go. N0NeInDeI as-NAdhie thy with a class peculiarly subject to hardships and temptations is manifest sd in this sermon by Rev. Frank De Witt Talmage on the text Nehemiah XII 20. 50 the sellers of all kind of ware lodged without Jerusalem once or twice."
 President Harrison once sent forth proclamation which aroused widespread interest. In it he announced that the claims of many Indian tribes had been bought up by the government; there fore, by the power which was vested in him as chief executive of the United States, he would on April %, 1889, open the central portion of Oklahoma to the American people. All the men and wo- men who at that time entered the new country could stake themselves out a claim or a lot or farm On the ap- pointed day thousands upon thousands of people assembled upon that border land. Some sat upon fleet thorough breds, ready to make the race for the choicest lots in the cities which would within few days spring up as if by magic and the streets of which were already laid out Some came on foot. These divested themselves of all super fiuous clothing so that they could run as swiftly as possible. When the signal was given by the pistol held in the cavalryman's hand, the great multitude broke into a run. The would be settlers rushed ahead so fast that within few hours the whole land was taken posses sion of, and cities like Guthrie began to rI,l. f.r,ltr foya years after it was first opened to the white man, had nearly 100000 inhabi- tants.
 But no sooner was Oklahoma settled and the little country stores set up than the wholesale merchants of New York and Philadelphia and Chicago and St. Louis began to send into this new ter ritory another great army of invaders made up of the representatives of their different establishments. These modern crusaders have been aptly termed in the commercial travellers parlance the knights of the grip" Instead of riding a war charger. like the knights of olden time, they rode behind an iron horse" which is called a locomotive. Instead of carrying spear or shield they car ried models or pictures, showing how the steel and Iron had been melted into blows and reapers and spades and axes and hammers and saws. Instead of hay ing mailed armor, they had pieces or cloth, which they carried as samples of clothing, which they wanted to sell to the storekeepers for the new farmers and their wives and children. There is not town in the United States, nU matter how small it may be or how newly established, which has escaped the weekly, if not daily, invasions of the commercial travellers.
 Ancient Commercial Travellers.
 In the scene of my text can be found almost an exact duplication of the ill- vasion of the newly settled regions of Oklahoma by the knights of the grip. No sooner did Nehemiah, the governor, return from his BabyIonIsn exile and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and make 1t a safe place in which to live than the commercial travellers of that day be- gan to flock toward the Davidic capital to dispose of their goods. But there was one habit about many of these ancient commercial travellers which Nehemiah did not like. Some of them would per- sist in arriving at the city walls on the Sabbath day and trying to turn God 8 day of rest into a day of barter and gain. The governor, in order to stop the sin of Sabbath descration, ordered that the city gates should be closed on the night before the Sabbath and not opened again until the morning after the Sabbath, no matter how much these ancient commercial travellers wanted to get in and escape the dangers of being murdered by the robbers who nightly infested the surrounding hills Thus we read the words of my text with clear CT interpretation. "So the sellers of all kind of ware lodged without Jerusalem once or twice.
 As we walk in and out among the sell CTS of Nehemiahs time, barred without the city walls and examine their piled up bales and hear the muttered curses of the men blaspheming because they could not enter the Jerusalem gates and watch the preparations they are making to resist the attacks of robbers, I am re- minded of the dangers to which our modern knights of the grip are exposed They, too, have lurking enemies who would despoil them, and because those enemies are more treacherous, more in- sidious and more ruthless than the Bed ouin hordes who menaced the ancient commercial travellers of Neheniah's time l am anxious to point them our and put the imperiled men on their guard.
 The evil dangers threaten a commer- cial travellers life when he is away from home. They try to ambush the seller of all kinds of ware when he is on the marcn; they strike at his heart in time and in place when he ia apt to think he can sin with impunitv. because no one will be the wiser as he can cover up his tracks; they come to the knights of the grip Tn the insinuat ing and dangerous ways that evil temp- tations sometimes overthrow Christian people when they are travelling abroad. It IS a well known fact that the aver age European travellers will commit sins in Paris or Vienna or Rome or Monte Carlo or Picking or Calcutta that thev would never dream of doing if thev were at home among their own friends and neighbors. The young Dutch Queen
 Wilhelmina illustrated this common tendency of the human race to he worse away from home than they are by their own fireside in the quaint and pointed answer which she gave to the Prince of Wales when visiting Queen Victoria some years ago. The then heir apparent to the English throne asked her wba, she was most impressed by in England Tt Is to find that the English peonle are so refined and gentle and kind and religiously devout in their own homes. D she replied. One would never nave guessed 1t from the specimens I have seen travelling in Holland"
 Shining Away From Home.