Crawfordsville Review, Crawfordsville, Montgomery County, 31 July 1897 — Page 6

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STOP GROWLING.

^PROSPEROUS PEOPLE LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR DEPRESSED FINANCIAL CON

DITIONS,

3Threc Prescriptions For the Restoration •ot Business Prosperity—Dr. TalDiage's Sermon*

s*1 discourse

of Dr. Taimage shows how all may help in the restoration of good times and is most appropriate. Text, Lamentations 3:39, "Wherefore doth a living man com1 plain?" He said:

While everything in our national

finances is brightening, for the last few years the land has been set to the tune of "Naomi." There has been here and there a cheerful soloist, but the grand •chorus has been one of lamentation accompanied by dirges over prostrated commerce, silent manufactories, unemployed mechanism and all thd"se disorders described by the two Short words, ""hard times." The fact is that we have been paying for the bloody luxury oi war more than thirty years ago. There were great national differences, and we had not enough Christian character to settle them by arbitration and treaty, and so we went intp battle, expending life and treasure ana well nigh swamping the national finances, and North and South, East and West, have ever -since been paying for those four years' •indulgence in barbarism.

But the time has come when this depression ought to end—yea. when it will •end, if the people are willing to do two or three things by way of financial medicament, for the people as well as Congress must join the work of recuperation. The best political economists tell us that there is no good reason for •continued prostration. Plenty of money awaiting investment. The national health with never so strong an arm or so clear a brain. Yet we go on groaning, groaning, groaning, as though God -had put this nation upon gruel and allowed us but one decent breakfast in six months. The fact is the habit of 'Complaint J»as-become chronic in this•country, and after all these years of •whimper and wailing and objurgation we are under such a momentum of snivel that we cannot stop.

There are three prescriptions by which I believe that our individual and national finances may be cured of their .present depression. The first is cheer•ful conversation and behavior. I have •noticed that the people who are most -vociferous against the day in which we live are those who are in comfortable •circumstances. I have made inquiry of "those persons who are violent in their jeremiads against these times and I have asked them. "Now, after all, are you not making a living?" After some" hesitation and coughing and clearing their throat three or four times Jjiey say -stammeringly: "Y-e-s." So "that with a great multitude of people it is not a question of getting a livelihood, but they are dissatisfied because they cannot make as much money as they would like to make.

Much of that responsibility I put upon men in comfortable circumstances who by an everlasting growling keep public confidence depressed and new enterprises from starting out and new liouses from being built. You know very well that one despondent man can talk fifty men into despondency, while one -cheerful physician can wake up into exliiliration a whole asylum of hypochondriacs. It is no kindness t® the poor or unemployed for you to join in this deploration. If you have not the wit and the common sense to think of something cheerful to say, then keep silent.

There is no man that can be independ«nt of depressed conversation. Some people are so overborne with the doloroivsness of the times that they say we shall have communistic outrages in this country such as they had in France. I do not believe it." The parallel does not run. They have no Sabtatn, no Bible, no God in France. We have all these defenses for our American people, and public opinion is such that if the people in this country attempt a cut-throat expedition they will land in Sing Sing, or from the gallows So up on tight rope. I do not believe -the people of this country will ever commit outrages and riot and murder for the sake of getting bread, but all the lagubrosity of tone and face keeps peo•ple down. Now I will make a contract. 'If the people of the United States for -•one week will talk cheerfully I will •open all the manufactories I will give •employment to all the unoccupied men and women: I will make a lively market 'for your real estate that is eating you •up with taxes I will stop tjie long processions on the way to the poorhouse and the penitentiary and I will spread a plentiful table from Maine to Cali--fornia and from Oregon to Sandy Hook and the whole land shall carol and thunder with national jubilee.

The second prescription for the alleviation of financial distress is proper 'Christian investment. God demands of •«very individual state and nation a cer'tain proportion of their income. We are parsimoniousl We keep back from •Gid that which' belongs to him, and when we keep back anything from God

He takes what we keep back, and He 'takes more. He takes it by storm, by sickness, by bankruptcy, by any one of the ten thousand ways which he can employ. The reason many of you are cramped in- business is because you have never learned- the lesson of Christian generosity. You employ an agent

You give him a reasonable salary, and, lo, you find out that he is appropriating your funds, besides the salary. What do you do? Discharge him. Well, we are God's agents. He puts tn oar hands certain moneys. Part Is to be ours part is to be His. Suppose we take all, what then? He will discharge us He will turn us over to vthe .financial disasters and take the

trust away from us. The reason that great multitudes are not prospered in business is simply because they have been withholding from God that which belongs to Him. The rule is, give and you will receive administer liberally and you shall have more to administer. I am in full sympathy with the man who was to be baptized by immersion, and some one said, "You had better leave' your pocketbook out it will get wet." "No," said he, ''I want to go down under the wave with everything. I want to consecrate my property and all to God." And so he was baptized. What we want in this country is more baptized pocketbooks.

The only safe investment that a man can make in this world is in the causc of Christ. If a man give from a superabundance, God .may or he may not respond with a blessing but if a man give until it fctches the blood, if a man give until his selfishness cringes and twists and cowers under it, he will get paid back in hard cash or in convertible securities. We often see men who are tight-fisted who seem to get along wilh their investments very profitably, notwithstanding all their parsimony. But wait. Suddenly in that man's history everything goes wrong. His health fails or his reason is dethroned, or a domestic curse smites him, or a midnight shadow of some kind drops upon his soul and upon his business. What is the matter? God is punishing him for his small-heartedness. He tried to cheat God and God worsted him.

You say to your son, "Now I will give you $5°° every year as long as you live." After awhile you say, "Well, my son, you prove yourself so worthy of my confidence I will just give you $20,000 in a single lump." And you give it to him, and he starts off. In two or three years he does not complain against you: "Father is not taking rare of me. I ought to have $500 a year," You prepaid your son, and he does not complain. There a.te thousands of us now who can this year get just enough to supply our wants, but did not God provide for us in the past, and has He not again and again paid us in advance— in other words, trusted you ail along, trusted you more than you had a right to ask? Strike, then, a balance for God. Economize in anything rather than in your Christian charities. There is not more than one out of three hundred of you who ever give enough to do you any good, and when some cause of Christianity, some missionary or Bible society or church organization, comes along and gets anything from you what do you say? You say, "I have been bled/' and there never was a more significant figure of speech than that used :n common parlance. Yes, you have been bled, and you are spiritually emaciated, when if you had been courageous enough to go through your property and say, "That belongs to God, and the other thing belongs to God," and no more dared to appropriate it to your own use than something that belonged to your neighbor instead of being bled to death by. charities you would have been reinvigorated and recuperated and built up for time and for eternity. God wiH keep many of you cramped in money matters until the day ot your death, unless you swing out into larger generosities.

People quote as a joke what is a divine promise, "Cast thy bread upon the waters and it will return to thee after many days." What did God mean by that? There is an allusion there. In Egypt when they sow the corn it is in a time when the Nile is overflowing its banks, and they sow the seed corn on the waters, and as the Nile begins to recede this seed corn strikes the earth and comes up a harvest, and that is the allusion. It seems as if they arc throwing the corn away on the waters, but after awhile they gather it up in a harvest. Now God says in His word,

Cast thy bread upon the waters and it shall come back to thee after many days." It may seem to you that you are throwing it away on charities, but it will yield a harvest of green and gold —a harvest on the earth and a harvest in heaven. If men could appreciate that and act on that, we would have no more trouble about individual or national finances.

Prescription the third, for the cure of all our individual and national financial distresses—a great spiritual awakening. It is no mere theory. The merchants of this country were positively demented with the monetary excitement in 1857. There never before nor since has been such a state of financial depression as there was at that time. A revival came, and 500,000 people were born into die kingdom of God. What came after the revival? The grandest financial prosperity we have ever had in this country. The finest fortunes, the largest fortunes in the United States, have been made since 1857. "Well." you say, "what has spiritual improvement and revival to do with monetary improve/nent and revival?" Much to do. The religion of Jesus Christ has a direct tendency to make men honest and sober and truth telling, and are not honesty and sobriety and truth telling auxiliaries of material prosperity?

If we could have an awakening in this country as in the days of Jonathan Edwards of Northampton, as in the as in the days of Dr. Griffin of Boston, the whole land would rouse to a higher moral tone, and with that moral tone the honest business enterprise of the country would come up. You say a great awakening has an influence upon the financial welfare of this world. The religion of Christ is no foe to successful business. It is its best friend. And if there should come a great awakening in this country and all the banks and insurance companies and stores

an4|.

Wces 3"d shops should close up for tvfo \yeeks and do nothing but attend" tb' fhe^public worship of Almighty God,,afttr such a spiritual vacation the land'MHiifld wake up to such financial prosperity fcs we have never dreamed of. Godliness is profitable for the life that now'ts as well as for that which is to cotne but, my friends, do not put so nluch emphasis on worldly success as to let" your eternal affairs go at loose ends. 1 have nothing to say against money. The more money you get the better, if it comes honestly and goes usefully. For the lack of it sickness dies without medicine, and hunger finds its coffin in an empty bread tray, and nakedness shivers for clothes and fire. All this

canting tirade against money as though it had no practical use, when I hear a man indulge in it, it makes me think the best heaven for him would be an everlasting poorhouse. No, there is a practical use in money, but while we admit that, we must also admit that it cannot satisfy the soul that it cannot pay for our ferriage across the Jordan of death that it cannot unlock the gate of heaven for our immortal soul.

Yet there are men who act as though packs of bonds and mortgages could be traded off for a mansion in heaven and as thou'gh gold were a legal tender in that land where it is so common that they make pavements out of it. Salvation by Christ is the only salvation. Treasures in heaven are the only incorruptible treasures. Have you ever ciphered out that sum in loss and gain, "What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole wqrld and lose his own soul?'' You may wear fine apparel now, but the winds of death will flutter it like rags. Homespun and a threadbare coat have sometimes been the shadow of robes white in the blood of the Lamb. And the mines of Australia and Brazil, strung in one carcanet, are not worth to you as much as the pearl of great price. You remember, I suppose some years ago, the shipwreck of the Central America? A storm came on that vessel. The surges tramped the deck and swept down through the hatches, and there went up a hundred voiced death shriek. The foam on the paw of the wave. The pitching of the.'steamer, as though it would leap a mountain. The glare of the signal rockets. The long cough of the steani pipes.. The hiss of extinguished furnaces. The walking of God on the wave. Oh, it was a stupendous spectacle. But that ship did not go down without a struggle. The passengers stood in long lines trying to bail it out and men unused to toil tugged until their hands were blistered and their muscles were strained. After ahwile a sail came in sight. A few passengers got off, but the most went down. The ship gave one lurch and was lost.

So there are men who go in life—a fine voyage they art making out of it. All is well, till some euroclydon of business disaster comes upon them, and they go down. The bottom of this commercial sea is strewn with the shattered hulks, but because your property goes shall your soul go? Oh, no! There is coming a most stupendous shipwreck after awhile. This world, God launched it 6,000 years ago, and it is sailing on, but one day it will stagger at the cry of "Fife!" and tbi timbers of the rocks will burn, and the mountains flame like masts, and the clouds like sails in the judgment hurricane. God will take a good many off the deck, and others out of the berths, where they are now sleeping in Jesus. How many shall go down? No one will know until it is announced in heaven one day: "Shipwreck of a world! So many millions drowned!" Because your fortunes go, because your house goes, because all your earthly possessions go, do not let your soul go! May the Lord Almighty, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, save your souls!

"Hard Times Come Again No Mol* In my boyhood, while at play, I heard some laborers on their way from the fields singing: "Hard times, hard times come again no more." I asked the meaning of the song, and was told that years ago, the people had felt hard times, and now rejoiced that good times had come. Yet at that time there was not $300 in cash within the entire community. Calico was 20 cents a yard men worked from 5 a. m. to 7 p. m., and lived on the coarsest food yet there was less complaint and unrest than at present. In those days beef steak once a week was a luxury, and a weekly newspaper was an extravagance.

But today, while we are living like princes and rolling in luxuries we sing "hard times." All political parties sing it, while spending fortunes in conventions and millions on railroads.

We sing hard times while riding $100 bicycles, eating 15 cent beef steak three times a day, smoking 10 cent cigars, and having three courses of the best provisions from the markets of the world. We whine hard times while we spend $200 on a summer excursion. We shout it while we squander millions in theaters and base ball parks. We tell about it, while we stand upon Brussells carpets, under electric lights, or sit on plush divans by gas fires. While reading both morning and evening dailies that are carried to our doors for 1 cent. We ring the changes on it while amusing ourselves talking through telephones. We growl it after spending $500 for bicycles, double that for pianos, organs and unnecessary luxuries. Last year we spent $6,000,000 for preaching, but the dog-bill was $60,000,000—ten times the amount spent for preaching.

Now is it right to cry hard times when we are squandering millions in extravagance? Better turn the day into thanksgiving. God has given us the grandest country on earth. It flows with milk and honey, and no giants are here. A day's labor today will buy twice as much clothing, three times as much food, and five times as much education (books and papers) as it would fifty years ago. We spend $250 for whisky to every $1 for missions, and as much money for drink as for bread, meat and education combined. Let us quit our sins and give up extravagance and we will sing, "Hard times, hard times, come again no more." —J. V. C. in Indiana Christian.

Passing Pleasantries,

"Matrimony," said the Sweet Girl Boarder, "is a holy rite." "Why, then," asked Asbury Peppers, with the air of a man sure of his ground, "why, then, is it that so many who marry find they are wholly left?"—Cincinnati Enquirer.

The amateur yachtsman who goes out sailing should bear in mind that there are a good many points to learn about tacking.—Philadelphia Record. "That is a very pretty servant maid they have next door to Tomlinson's." "Yes that's the one they always send over to borrow Tomlinson's lawn mower."—Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Human beings are not alone in cherishing a tender attachment. There is the railway engine, for instance.—Lowell Courier!

A Chin ess Student.

Sao-Ke Alfred Sze, a young Chinaman, has just been graduated from the Washington High School. He has been a bright student, and is well liked by his classmates. Next fall he expects to enter one of the leading colleges, and, after taking a full collegiate course, to study law. This will necessitate his remaining in America for at least seven years more, and at the end of that time he will return to China', and wilj probably be in line for diplomatic service. He will be twenty-seven years of age when he returns to his home, near Shanghai, after an absence of eleven years, but he will be fitted by education and training to fill almost any diplomatic place that may be offered to him.— Washington Star.

A Kingly Hal it.

Most of the European sovereigns are early risers. The Emperor of Austria

ALWAYS RIGHT SIDE UP.

New Lifeboat That Will Bale Itself and Cannot Be Swamped by the Roughest Seas.

Oneida, N. Y., Special to {he World: There is a strange craft moored at Sylvan Beach, on Oneida Lake. Its like was never before seen on the inland waters of this State, and its misison is out of all proportion to its size. The

1. Temperance—Eat not to dullness drink not to elevation. 2. Silence—Speak not but what you may benefit others or yourself avoid trifling conversation. 3. Order—Let all your things have their places let each part 01 your business have its time.

what you ought perform without fail

what you resolve. 5. Frugality—Make no expense but! to do good to others or yourself that' is, waste nothing. 6. Industry—Lose no time be al-' ways employed in something useful cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. Sincerity—Use no hurtful deceit think innocently and justly and, if you speak, speak accordingly. 8. Justice—Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty. 9. Moderation—Avoid extremes forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. 10. Cleanliness—Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes or habitation. 11. Tranquility—Be not disturbed at trifles or at accidents, common or unavoidable. 12. Chastity. 13. Humility—Imitate Jesus and Socrates. Jc -M,'

:..,X Cherrybles' Successors,

The Queen's Carriage Crossing London Bridge-Diamond Jubilee Procession

rises at 4:30 a. m. in the summer and 5 a, .m. in the winter. The Empress has her bath at 4 o'clock. The German Emperor gets to work at 5 o'clock, and often starts out for his morning ride at 6. The kings of Italy, Roumania and Sweden and Norway rise at 6 o'clock. The Queen and Queen Regent of Holland are also early risers but the late Dom Pedro of Brazil broke all records in early rising, being in the habit of getting up for the day at 3 a. m. and visiting his friends between 4 and 5.

Feminine Saw Millers.

There is a saw-mill in Grandin, Mo., many departments of which are in charge of women. There is a woman in charge of the engine. One of the rooms where the big saws are operated is managed by women. The lathe room is also populated with femininity, and the machines of all sorts are handled by them. In the rooms adjoining a force

THE LIFEBOAT WHICH WILL NOT SINK.

craft is a new self-baling and self-right-ing life boat that was recently launched for the use of the Oneida Lake Volunteer Life-Saving Corps.

Comodore Allan R. Lype, of this village, is its designer, builder and owner, and he has placed it at the disposal of the life-saving crew at Sylvan Beach. Its length over all is 13 feet 3 inches, with four feet and four inches beam. Washington cedar was used in its construction, and every joint is copper-fas-

FKASKLIN'S RULES OF CONDUCT. A SPIRAL BRIDGE APPROACH.

115

A large London firm has secured fori the entire season a commodious and' well-furnished detached house at Wal-ton-on-the-Naze, where everyone of its hundreds of factory hands and ware-1 house staff will be accommodated, in) batches of thirty at a time, with a fortnight's free board and lodging, in addition to receiving a present of threej weeks' awges. Moreover, on June 21' and 22 the works were closed, and to* each of the workers was presented three days' pay.

A Steep Grade Overcome in a Very Unique Manner.

St. Louis GJobe-Democrat: A jew wagon bridge is to be built at Hastings, Minn., which is probably the first of its kind. Its peculiar feature is the spiral

.• 1 approach at the south end. On account 4. Resolution-Resolve to perform

the hd

1a vrn rfifin vc fcbove high-water mark—it was neces-

of th channel

bf 38o feet-which

is placed at 55 feet

sary to have a very long approach to feither end, in order to avoid a steep

frade. The. town being close to the liver, it would have been necessary to fun a straight approach to such a distance as to spoil the looks of the business streets. In order to overcome this difficulty it was decided to make use of 1 corner lot 60 by 120 feet, adjoining ibe foot of Shelby street, and to build {hereon a spiral approach. There was

young women is constantly employed filing and getting the saws in si,ape for work The care of the machine"/ their hands, and it is said that tliev a quite as adept, and as competent to

thcmHl'1

35 3ny

f°rCe

yCt

emi)lo'ed

A -Hardware" Story.

"When I was-out West," said a business man, a young man registered at the hotel and proceeded to make thine? lively The first night he plaved poker with the landlord and cleaned him out" the next night he came home drunk and whipped the cabman the third night ht went up and down the halls singing at the top of his voice and daring the chambermaids to come out and embrace him. In the morning they asked for the key of his room, and gave him his bill. He looked it over, and then said with surprised pathos: 'Don't you make any discount to ministers?' Hardware.

tened. Equipped with air chambers and having an extraordinary beam measurement, it is expected that the boat will ride any wave. In the event of its being swamped, however, it will immediately right itself. Being completely decked over, there is no place for water to find lodgment, that which may dash over the side upon the deck being discharged back into the lake through automatic openings in the gunwale.

some doubt at first as to the feasability of the plan, but it proves to be a very decided success, and doubtless will be imitated in the future where similar difficulties arise.

Beginning at the heart of the city the approach starts with a rise of 7^4 feet to the 100, forming an earth grade banked between massive retaining walls 120 feet long. The spiral, built of steel, begins at the end of this drive and winds its way with a curve of 60 feet, with a grade of 5 feet to the 100. for a distance of 385 feet then, striking again a straight approach from the

A NOVEL BRIDGE APPROACH.

point where the spiral ends, there is rise of 6 feet to the 100 for a

(^is|a'lh

of 120 feet, to the beginning ot channel span. This span is 3°° long from center to center of end P'

Beyond is another

120-foot

span,

twenty-one spans of 33 fect ,ea r,et minating with an approach ot

making a total of 970 feet.