The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-02-22
we are. A pain we have never known i may be gnawing at his heart. | HAZARDOUS VENTURES

we are. A pain we have never known
 may be gnawing at his heart.
 HAZARDOUS VENTURES People who have little often take an investment risk that one of larger
 means would under no conditions take;
 this tendency seems to be born of a feeling that by mere saving a person can never hope to amass a competency. While this feeling may, in many cases,
 be Justified by the facts, it does not warrant the making of an investment
 in which the chances for loss are fifty 1 10 one Such action is often Justified by the saying, Nothing ventured
 nothing gained" but, like many other | half-truths, this saying is a very dan- gerous lie. Even if one never amasses a competency. it is worth something to
 own home, or have little invest
 ment to fall back on.
 | The average man cannot afford to do anything with his savings, except to place them in the most approved forms of investment. He should avoid far away mining ventures, patented de- vices, and other getrich quick schemes; where one person has been
 made comfortable or rich by such in- vestments. thousands have been ruined. The great majority of wealthy men have made money from enter prises of a on-speculative nature. The | reason the poor man is offered spec ulative investment, is because the man of means will not take it. It not infrequently occurs that young man who has inherited larger or smaller sum will invest it all in a business that he has not sufficient experience to conduct, and promptly | lose his birthright. And very often a woman whose father has left prop erty, will allow her husband to put it int htiC hn fnH hxs himself, or in company with others, or in some speculative venture in which it is entirely lost. While one may be justified in risking a part of his patrimony in this way, it is extremely unwise to so use more than
 very limited portion of it. If one begins business on a small scale and has the capacity to do SC, he con build il up to large proportions with out putting all he has into it. All busi- ness enterprises are fraught with very much more danger of loss than bonds, or investments in;~ or loans upon, real estate, and a person who has inherited means ought not, in any event, to invest t all in d single business venture. If he
 begins on a small scale, and finds that he has not the quality of management. he is vastly better off to invest his capital in the approval forms of security just mentioned. and work on salary.
 This course, in the long run, vii not only enhance his means but increase his hap piness.
 IS POVERTY A BLESSING? All experience shows that in the scheme of things, whether we may agree with it cr not, the majority of people have always been poor the Scripture in- dicating that wealth, rather than poverty, is often curse. The fact that benign Providence has permitted only few to become rich is strong ground for the pe- lief that poverty is a blessing. We do not mean the extreme of poverty, but use the term in a comparative sense. Anyone
 who has lived long knows that wealth, ot itself, does not bring happiness: then why grieve if you do not possess II 1 Most of us who have children live more | in their future than in our own and get I more pleasure in them than in any ma | terial possession. Experience seems to show that the children of persons in l moderate circumstances as a rule, are
 the successful people. Statistics also in- | from families of small means; neither | wealthy families nor wealthy churches, as rule, sending out ministers. Possib- l ly if the figures were reversed, and five per cent of the people were poor, and | ninety-five per cent wealthy the church would fall into decay.
 l Belonging to family of people, Living stone, the great missionary, had been | a weaver. One of the highest honors 1 that can be paid an Englishman after 1 death is to inter his remains in Vest minister Abbey, for the English only 1 bury their great men there. When Liv- I ingstone's body was laid to rest with the l distinguished company of those who sleep ] in Westminster, one of the leading Lon l don papers closed a striking poem re- garding him, with these lines: Open the Abbey doors and bear him in l To sleep with king and statesman, l chief and sage.
 1 The missionary come of weaver kin, | But great by work that brooks no lower wage.
 1 He needs no epitaph to guard a name, l Which men shall prize while worthy work is known:
 ] He lived and died for good-be this his lame:
 Let marble crumble: this is Living stone"
 1 If in life you have done your lAst, but navL fallen short of what yo. sought to accomplish, it may be that your children, or theirs. will do a work 1 and achieve fame more enduring than l marble. May God grant iti JOHN H. FRYE. N