The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-07-21

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overdraw on the capital nature supplies
and If they stop their overdrafts soon
enough the bank will grant them leeway.
They can be remedied; but let them swing
along too far and no medicine or balmy
CLINE in Colorado can change their down
ward fate.
COMMERCIAL HONOR.
Take commerce. There are, perhaps,
venial sins and pardonable faults. A man
may overstep the limits and not ruin his
career if he reins himself up then and
there. Many business men have frolic-
some young adventures in the office who
fancy the stars will always shine on their
path and who tempt Providence with the
placid innocent hypotheis that wasps never
sting when you place bread on their hive
and lions never spring when you prowl
near the lair, and so they violate the laws
of honor in the offices and are caught.
Then things look serious when the en-
ployer talks about dismissing them from
the service, and to go home to mother and
sisters and sweethearts with the stigma of
election looks very grave, indeed. For
night or two they do not sleep. Their step
is not quite so sprightly. Then the en-
ployer calls the young offender and gives
him another chance, or better still, the
young miscreant, not bad at heart, but
simply reckless and overconfident that the
world is under infinite obligation to him
and Will carry him along, repentS of his
folly and unbosoms to the employer and
so another chance is given to recoup him
self. This occurs again and again. AS
let the same policy of stupidity continue
and the world becomes memorable in its
condemnation. A man, after the fifth or
tenth offence, can't go back He can't WOO
pardon. He can't reinstate himself in
business, for business men have sounded
the depths of his depravity and turn him
loose.
mo doubt the world is severe Once
down, il seems impossible TO work up
again. Before blame the world let us
ask why men dare 10 sink down so far
Ranchmen never allow their fleet horses to
wander from the path of strength and dis
cipline and Swiftness-not for twenty-four
hoursi They figure on no manned limbs
no contraction of slight sickness no brief
lameness. A horse with a faint will not
sell. 1t is development from colthood right
on, and not movement of DETECTION or
wild experiment If on the ranch they are
so particular in regime, why not in the
world of live human beings? Why let men
go down and then help them to crawl up
with ease? Why let a man dip down into
some vice, like gambling, and breed some
meanness into him and then scourge the
world because the world scourges him for
his madness?
However profoundly l believe I'm the
doctrine of reparation and the doc
trine of Gods love as sweet restorer of
the bruised and wounded soul, | still be-
Heve that nature comes from God as surely
the Bible. The facts Of history and
everyday life crucial and authorita-
tive as any revelations can be, and the
Bible chimes with the many voices of ma
ture when they say, Take care: the ket-
tie does not stop boiling the moment you
turn the gas off underneath; the malaria
is not quenched in the blood the year the
marsh is drained; the penalties of sin con-
tlnue long after the sin itself may be
stopped; and though in our ignorance ma
ture is long suffering, yet if We daily too
long with wrong and sport too much in
courses of doubt or fraud, we will find ma
ture fierce as a furnace and implacable
a demon
SHARKS IN BUSINESS.
There were boys once petted and praised
because they were clever in tricks: a new
trick Matched out every day and blinded
friends phrophesied such deft, dexterous
boys would rise in the world. Their little
juvenile foxiness and overreach were
easily forgiven or overlooked. Time wore
OF and the boys have grown to men who
walk with clouds of calumny and misin-
depreciation around their deads. They have
more foxiness and more lecherous lizardly
underhand qualities than ever They are
engaged in a furtive line OF business: they
get widows and maidens and guileless
schoolpeople TO invest their little portions:
they work them in and trade on their trust
full temperaments; and then after they have
invested the promoters silly increase dues
or levy fresh tax or by some sharp
thumhscreW methods freeze them ont and
pany and not to the widows. There are
tigers who carry on such business. but they
are oily. They are quite eloquent and we'll
dressed and plausible. There are no Sinner
reptiles in the swamps of Central Africa
They laugh at virtue and rectitude and
when the church warns they mock What
do those drones OF the pulpit know about
the world?' But time wears on and those
merciless unprincipled men are caught in
their own game. And then? Can they
recover themselves? viii they be a BILE TO
purchase or persuade themselves back in
10 the confidence Of business men as once
they deceived guileless women and rifed
their treasures? II is another proposition
They are down and complain the world
is so remorseless toward veteran sinners
Indeed What about the homes they have
plunged in want and the old age they
have caused 10 grieve over scanty savings
stolen? Can nature forget?
The curtain lifts little and we peer
beyond 10 seek the rest of the drama Does
sin end because breath stops? Does the
character, fixed and fastened and riveted
by years OF villainy or shame go through
some mythical process at death and a heart