The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1903-02-19
TALMAGE
SERMON
By Rev.
FRANK DE WITT TALMAGE, DID,,
Pastor Of Jefferson Park Presby-
terrain Church, Chicago
ssSAafska

Chicago, Feb. Is. In this sermon
the preacher deals with the widely
prevalent vice of running into debt as
result of social and domestic eStrav-
agance and a 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 famous scholastic clergy
man was talking to a 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. !
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 nos work Il
third as hard upon them as do. Half
of your days are spent in calling and
in wandering about the streets and i'll
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
of which books are made. You breathe
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; b
sit with them at the table; l go with
them into their stores; then, when I
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 ropemaker's bench than the
synagogue's pulpit. AS practical Cos
pei physician he in my text today dag
noses one of the most distressing NOR
al diseases of the human race. He saw
that the men and women Of his time
We're 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 pestilence
or famine. If you have not more than
so cents and can get no more for a
week, buy peck of corn, parch it and
live On it rather than owe any man a
dollar" ''Owe no man anything"
That means in John Randolph's inter
probation of the philosophers stone,
..pay as you co. That means that if
you have no money with which to sat
isfy your personal desires then let
them be unsatisfed. Allow no creditor
as jaiIer to rivet heavy iron ball of
financial obligation to your limbs. Do
not buy feathered singer unless at
the same time you have money to pur-
chase a cage in which to let your song
ster abide. 5-r
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 neeessaries if he will only work
hard, do his best and not waste his in
come on useless eXtrayagances. Henry
Ward Beecher once made the declara-
ton that man could feed himself and
wife and a family of growing children
upon S1.50 per week. For making this
raigned by thousands of critics. Many
newspaper editorials affirmed that the
Plymouth pastor was advocating the
reduction of the laborers' salaries to
25 cents a day. He was not attempting
any such thing. What Mr.. Beecher
tried to prove was this: The bare nee
essaries of life are very small; there
fore most people can provide for their
actual needs if they will only be ener-
getic and at the same time be frugal.
But this frugality. in many cases.
pride will not permit them to practice.
Pride. with the smiling, supercilious
face and bediamonded finger, usually
comes to the young mans home with
such insinuating words as these: MY
friend, you have no right to rear your
family as you are doing. You should
not allow your wife to stand behind
counter or to live in the back room of
the store with her two babies, as your
mother once did. This is different
age from that in which your father
started out. If you do not let your
children grow up in a respectable
neighborhood and go to refined and ex-
pensive private schools, then their
youthful associates will be bad, and
refined people will have nothing to do
with them" So the young man, who
was making a humble income and was
on the highroad to ultimate financial
success, hires private home on the
boulevard. He moves his family away
from the neighborhood of his store.
He hires a clerk to do the work for
sIr,,, ~, l.; xvyhslf, hn him.