Milford chronicle., 1903-02-20
TALMAGE
SERMON
By Rev.
FRANK DE WITT TALMAGE, DID,
Pastor of jefferson Park Presby-
terian Church, Chicago

Chicago, Feb. Is. - In this sermon
the preacher deals with the widely
prevalent vice Of running into debt as
Il result of social and domestic extray
agance and false standard of living
and arraigns willful debt as the cause
Of manifold miseries. The text is Ro-
mans xiii, S, "Owe no man anything"
One day a famous scholastic clergy
man was talking to n noted practical
preacher. How is it," said he. that
you can collect such great audiences to
hear you preach? / have one of the
best private libraries in the world i
spend at least ten hours a day in my
study with my books, and yet the peo-
pie prefer to hear you preach instead
of me. They want to hear your ser.
mons, although you do not work a
third as hard upon them as l do. Half
Of your days are spent in calling and
in wandering about the streets and in
the stores" All" answered the prac
teal minister TO his scholastic friend
1.-The difference between us is that you
read books, while | study the stuff out
the atmosphere of musty tones; l, by
close association. study the hearts Of
the men and women with whom | come
in contact. You translate epitaphs of
dead men; analyze the troubles and
temptations and sins of living men; |
sit with them at the table; l go with
them into their stores; then, when l
begin to discuss their trials and temp
tations, they naturally want to come
and hear me preach"
Paul was a practical minister and
not one famed for mere intellectual at
tainments. His rostrum was more Of
ten the rOpemakers bench than the
synagogue's pulpit. As a practical gos-
pei physician he in my text today dag. I
noses one of the most distressing NOR I
nj diseases of the human race He saw
that the men and women of his time
were living beyond their means and
struggling in the quicksand of debt
just as many people are doing in the
twentieth century; therefore he gave
in his Roman epistle the same advice
that Horace Greeley once wrote: "Nev-
er run into debt. Hunger. cold. rags.
hard work, suspicion, unjust reprOach.
are disagreeable. but debt is infinitely
worse than them all. Avoid pecuniary
obligations as you would a pestilence
or famine. If you have not more than
so cents and can get no more for
week, buy peck of corn. parch it and
live on it rather than owe any man &
dollar" owe no man anything"
That means in John Randolph's inter
pretatiOn of the philosophers stone,
pay as you 60" That means that if
you have no money with which to sat
isfy your personal desires then let
them be unsatisfied. Allow no creditor
as jailer to rivet heavy iron ball of
financial obligation to your limbs. Do
not buy a feathered singer unless at
the same time you have money to pur-
chase a cage in which to let your song
ster abide.
Debt the Offspring of Pride.
Debt is generally the offspring Of
pride. The bare necessaries of life are
very small. Nearly every man can
make enough money to provide for
these necessaries if he will only work
hard, do his best and not waste his in
come on useless eXtravagances. Henry
Ward Beecher once made the declara-
tiOn that a man could feed himself and
wife and family of growing children
upon S1.5O per week For making this
statement Mr. Beecher was sharply ar y
raigned by thousands of critics Many +
newspaper editorials affirmed that the Q
Plymouth pastor was advocating the Il
reduction of the laborers' salaries to n
p cents a day. He was not attempting o
any such thing. What Mr. Beecher Il
tried to prove was this: The bare nee q
essaries of life are very small: there @
fore NEST people can provide for their /,
actual needs if they will only be ener- "
getic and at che same time be frugal n
But this frugality, in many cases. n
pride viii not permit them TO practice. Ii
Pride, with the smiling, superciliOus +,
ACE and bediamonded finger. usually ri
,omes to the young mans home with v
iuch insinuating words as these: My h
friend. you have no right to rear your 81
amily as you are doing. You should la
lot allow your wife to stand behind II
counter or to live in the back room of o,
he store With her two babies. as your le
mother once did. This is a different o,
ge from that in which your father Il,
tarted out. If you do not let your "
hildren grow up in a respectable m
and so to refined and ex. cr
'ensive private schools. then their h,
outhful associates will be bad. and n
efined people will have nothing to do in
With them" So the young man. who r.
vas making Il humble income and was ar
n the highroad to ultimate financial iii
uccess. hires private home on the dr
oulevard. He moves his family away ct
rom the neighborhoOd of his store do
Ie hires a clerk to 90 the work for hi
ierly done by his wife. while he him dc
elf is visiting the wholesale depart 40
rents. The income. small before. be- IN
Dmes less and less; the expenses of 90
le family sustenance are doubled and
uadrupled; a haunted. worried. anx- nj
lus look comes over the young mans fr