Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1890 — BUYERS AND SELLERS. [ARTICLE]

BUYERS AND SELLERS.

4 Practical S -rmon on the Difficulties of Easiness Life. Sot. X De Witt T aim age Discourses on the Temptations Which Beset Business Ken —The Staid Clothier —Allurements to Catch the Unwary Countryman—The Sanctity of Home Forgotten.

Sunday morning at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Dr. Talmage preached from the text—Proverbs AO: 14. “it is naught, it Is naught, saith the buyer: bui when he is pone his way, then he boasteth.” Palaces ire not such prisons as the world imagines. If you think that the only time kings and pieens come forth from the royal gates is in procession and gorgeously attended, you ire mistaken. Incognito, by day or by night, and clothed ia citizens’ apparel, >r the dress of a working woman they some out and see the world aslt is. In no Jther way could King Solomon, the author >f my text, have known everything that was going on. From my text I am sure he must, in disguise, some day have walked nto a store of ready-made clothing, in Terusaletn, and stood near the counter and overheard a conversation between a buyer ind a seller. The merchant put a price on » coat, and the customer began to dicker ind said: “Absurd! that coat is not worth (That you ask for it. W hy, just look at the coarseness of the fabricl See that ipot on the collar I - Besides that it does not fit. Twenty dollars for that! Why, it isn’t worth more than rieST They have a better article than that, and for cheaper price, down at Cloathem, L item & Brothers. Besides that, I don’t want it at any price. Good morning.” “Hold,” says the merchant; “don’t go off In that way. I want to sell you that coat. 1 have some payments to make and I want the money. Come now, how much will you give for that coat?” “W ell,” says the customer, “I will split the difference. You asked twenty dollars, and I said ten.' Now, l will give you fifteen.” “>\ eH,” says the merchant, “it’s a great sacrifice, but take tt at that price.” Then Solomon saw the customer with a roll under his arm start and go out and enter his own place of business, ana Solomon in disguise followed Aim. He heard the customer as he anrolled the coat say: “Boys, I have made a great bargain. How much do you guess 1 gave for that coat?” “Well,” says one, wishing to compliment his enterprise, “you save thirty dollars for it.” Another says, “I should think you got it cheap if you gave twenty-five dollars.’’ “No,” says the buyer in triumph, “I got it for fifteen dollars. I seat him down and pointed out the imper-' lections, until I really made him believe it was not worth hardly anything. It takes me to make a bargain. Hal Hal” Oh man, you got the goods for less than they were worth by positive falsehood; and no wonder, when Solomon went back to his palace and had put off his disguise, that he iut down at his writing-desk and made for ill ages a crayon sketch of you: “It is naught, it is naught, suith the buyer, but when he is gone his way, then he boastatb.”

There are no higher styles of men in all the world than those now at the head of merchandise in Brooklyn and New York md in the other great cities of this continent. Their casual promise is as good as a bond with piles of collaterals. Their reputation for integrity is as well establisned is that of Petrarch residing in the family if Cardinal Colonna, and when there was ?reut disturbance in the family the Cardl>al called all his people together, and put ’hem under oath to tell the truth, except Petrarch, for when he came up to swear, he Cardinal put away his book and said, ‘As to you, Petrarch, your word is sufficient.” Never since the world > ood have there been so many merchants whose transactions can stand the test of the Ten Commandments. Such bargainmakers are all the more to be honored because they have withstood, year after year, temptations which have flung many so flat, ind flung them so hard, they can never reover themselves. YY hile all positions in life have powerful besetments to evil, there are specific forms of allurement .vhich are peculiar to each occupation and rofession, and it will be useful to speak the peculiar temptations of business

First, as in the scene of the text, business men are often tempted to sacrifice plain truth, the seller by exaggerating the value jf goods, and the buyer by depreciating them. We cannot but admire an expert salesman. See how he firat induces the customer into a mood favorable to the proper consideration of the value of the goods. He shows himself to be an honest and fr..nk salesman. How carefully the lights are arranged till they fall Just right upon the fabric I Beginning with goods of. medium quality, he gradually advances toward those of more thorough make, ana of more attractive pattern. How he watches the moodo and whims of his customer I Y\ ith what perfect calmness he takes the order, und bow° the purchaser from his presence, who goes away having made up his mind that lie has bought the goods at a pr'ce wh'jh will allow him a living margin when he again sells them. The gojds were worth what the salesman said they were, and wore sold at a price which wilt not ms lie it necessary for the house to fail e>’ery ten years in order to fix up things. But r. ith what burning indignation wo think of the iniquitous stratagems by whicn goods are sometimes disposed of. A glance at ttie morning paper shows the arrival ut one of our hotels of a young merchant from one of the inland cities. Ho is a comparative stranger in the great city, and, of course, m;sU he shown around, and it will be the duty of some of our enterprising houses to escort him. He is a large purchaser and has plenty of time and money, ana it will pay to he very attentive. The evening is spent at a place of doubtful amusement. They go back tor the hotel. Having Just come to town, they must, of course, driuk A friend from the same mercantile establishment drops in, and usage and generosity suggest that they must drink. Business prospect* are talked oyer, and the stranger is warned against certain dilapidated mercantile establishments that are about to fail, and for such kindness and magnanimity of caution against the dishonesty of other business houses, of course it is expected they .will—and so they do—they take a drink. Other merchants lodging in adjoining rooms find it hard to sleep for the clatter of decanters, and the coarse carousal of these “hail fellows well met” waxes louder. But they sit not all night at the wine cup. They must see the sights. They stagger forth with cheeks flushed and eyes oioodshqt. The outer gates of bell open to let iu the victims. The wings of lost souls flit amoug the lights, and the steps of the carousers sound with the rumbling thunders of the damned. Farewell to all the sanctities of home I Could mother, sister, lather, Numbering in the inland home, U >ome vial n of that night catch a glimpse >f the ruin wrought they would reud oat heir hair by the roots and bite the tongue .ill tho bluoe. spurted, shrieking oat: “God save him l ,r Vrtst, suppose yea, will cease npea such

business establishments! and {here are hundreds of them in the cities. They may boast of fabnlons sales, and they may have an unprecedented ran of buyers, and tbe name of the house ‘may he a terror to all rivals, and from this thrifty root there may spring up brinch houses in other cities, and all the partners of the firm may move into their mansions and drive their fullblooded span, and the families may sweep the street with the most elegant apparel that human art ever wove, or earthly magnificence ever achieved. But a curse is gathering somewhere for those men, and if it does not seize hold of the pillars and in one wild ruin bring down the temple of commercial glory, it will break up their peace, and they will tremble with sicknesses and bloat with dissipations, and, pushed to the precipice of this life, they will try to hold back, and cry for help, but no help will come; and they will clutch their gold to take it aioag with them, but it will be snatched from their grasp, and a voice will sound through their soul, “Not a farthing, thou beggared spirit!” And the judgment will come and they will stand aghast before it, and all the business iniquities of a life time will gather around them, saying; “Do you remember this?” and, “Do you remember that?” And clerks that they compelled to dishonesty, and runners and draymen and bookkeepers who saw behind the scenes, will bear testimony to their nefarious deeds,.and some virtuous soul that ouce stood aghast at the spleador and power of these business men will say, “Alas! this is all that is left of that great firm that occupied a block with their merchandise and overshadowed the city with their influence, and made righteousness and truth and purity fall under the galling fire of avarice and crime.”

While we admire and approve of all acuteness and tact in the sale of goods, we must condemn any process by which a fabric or product is represented as possessing a value which it really does not have. Nothing but sheer falsehood can represent aa perfection boots that rip, silks that speedily loose their lustre, calicoes that immediately wash out, stoves that’crack under the first hot fire, books insufficiently bound, carpets that unravel, old furniture rejuvenated with putty aud glue, and sold as having been fecently' manufactured, gold watches made out of brass, barrels of fruit, the biggest apples on the top, wine adulterated With strychnine, hosiery poorly woven, cloths of domestic manufacture shining with foreign labels, imported goods represented as rare and hard to get, because foreign exchange is so high, rolled out on the counter with matchless display. Imported indeed I but from the factory in the next street. A pattern already unfashionable and unsalable palmed off as a new print upon some country merchant who has coma to town to make his first purchase of dry goods and going home with a large stock of goods warranted to keep. ■ ■ ' - _' Again, business men are often tempted to make the habits and customs Of other traders their law of rectitude. There are commercial usages which will not stand the test of the last day. Yet men in business are apt to do as their neighbors do. If the majority of the traders in any locality are lax in principle, the commercial code in that community will be spurious and dishonest. It is a hard thing to stand close by the law of right wheu your next-door neighbor by his looseness of dealing is enabled to sell goods at a cheaper rate and decoy your customers. Of course you who promptly meet all your business engagements, paying when you promise to pay, will find it hard to compete with that merchant who is hopelessly in debt to the importer for the goods purchased, and to the landlord whose store he occupies, and to the clerks who serve him.

There, are a hundred practices prevalent in the world of trafflo which ought never to become the rule for honest idea. Their wrong does not make your right. Sin never becomes virtue by being multiplied and admitted at brokers’ board or merchants’ exchange. Because others smuggle a few things in passenger trunks, because others take usury whoa men are in tight places,because others deal in fancy stocks, because others palm off worthless indorsements, because others do nothing but blow bubbles, do not, therefore, he overcome of temptation. Hollow pretension and fictitious credit, and commercial gambling may awhile prosper, but the day of reckoning cometh, and in addition to the horror and condemnation of outrkged cominuuitms,the curse of God will come, blow after blow, God’s will forever and forever is the only standard of right and wrong, and not commercial ethics. Young business man, uvolcT the first business dishonor, and you will avoid all the rest. The captain of a vessel was walking near the mouth of a river when the tide was low, and there was a long stout anchor chain, into oue of the great links of which his foot slipped, and it began to swell and he could not withdraw it. The tide began to rise. The chain could not be loosoned nor filed off in time, and a surgeon was called to amputate the limb, but before the work oould be done, the tide roiled over the victim aud his life was gone. And I have to tell you, .young m in, that Just one wrong into which you slip may be a link of a long chain of circumstances from which you cannot be extricated by any ingenuity of your own, or any help from „tuers, and the tides will roll over you as they have over many. When Pompey, the warrior, wanted to take possession of a city, and they would not opeu the gates, he persuaded them to admit a sick soldier. But the sick soldier after a while got well and strong, and he threw open the gates and let the devastating army come in. One ' wrong admited into the soul may gain in strength until, after a while, it flings open all the avenues of the immortal nature, and the surrender is complete.

Again, many business men have been templed to postpone their enjoyments aud dut.es to s future season of entire leisure. What a sedative the Christian religion would be to all our business men if. Instead “S of postponing its uses to old age or death, they would take it into the store or factory or worldly engagements now! It is folly to go amid the uncertainties of business life with no God to help. A merchant in a New England village was standing by a horse, and the horse lifted his foot to stamp it in a pool of water; and the merchant, to escape the splash, stepped Into tbs door of an insurance agent, and the agent saVJ, “I suppose you have come to renew your fire insurance.” “Oh,” said the merchant, “I had forgotten that." The insurance was renewed, and the next day the houae that had been insured was burned. Was it all accidental that the merchant, to escape a solash from a horse’s foot, stepped into the insurance offleel No.it was providential. And what a mighty solace for a business man to feel that things are providential t What peace and equilibrium in such a consideration, and what a grand thing if all business men could realise itl Many, although now comparatively straitened in worldly circumstances, hare a goodly establishment in the future planned out. They have in imagination built aboat tw nty years ahead a house is tha country not difficult of access from the great town, for they will often have business, orold accounts to settle and investments to look after. The house Is Urge enough to aooonmodste all their friends. Th* hsUs are Widened bang with ptottros

of hunting-scenes and a branch Of and are comfortable with chairs that can be rolled oat on- 4he veranda when the weather is invitiiig, or set Out under some of the oaks that stand sentinel about the house, and rustling in the cool breeze, and songful with ths robins. There is just land enough to keep them interested, and its crops ofjalmost fabulous riotmessspringing up uv her application of the best theories to b« found in tbe agricultural journals. The farm is well stocked with cattle and horses, and sheep that know the voice and have a kindly bleat when one goes forth to look at them. In this blissful abode thoit children will be instructed in art and science and religion. This shall be the old homestead to which the boys at college will direct their letters, and the hill on which the house stands will be called Oakwood or Ivy Hill or Pleasant Retreat or Eagle Eyrie. May the future have for every business man here all that and more beside 1 But are you postponing your happiness to that time? Are you adjoining your joys to that consummation? Suppose that you achieve all yon expect —and the vision I mention is not up to the reality, because the fountains will be brighter, the house grander, and the soenery more picturesque—tlie mistake is none the less fataL What charm will there be in rural quiet for a man who has thirty or forty years been conforming his entire nature to the excitements of business) Will flocks and herds with their bleat and moan be able to silence the insatiable spirit of acquisitiveness which has for years had full swing in the soul! Will the hum of the breeze soothe the man who now can find his only enjoyment in the stock market) Will leaf and cloud and fountain charm the eye that has., for three-fourths of a lifetime found its chief beauty in hogsheads and bills of sale? Will parents be competent to rear their children for high and holy purpose. If their inf ancy and boyhood and girlhood were neglected, when they are almost ready to enter upon the world and have all their habits fixed and their principles stereotyped? No, no; now is the time to be happy. Now is the tune to serve your Creator. Now is the time to be a Christian. Are you too busy? I have known men as husy as you are who had a place in the store-loft where they went to pray. Some one asked a Christian sailor where he found any place to pray in. Ho said, “I can always find a quiet place at mast-head.” And in the busiest day of the season if your heart is right you can find a place to pray. Broadway and Fulton Street are good places to pray in as you go to meet your various engagements. Go home a little earlier and get introduced to your child-

ren. Be not a galley-slave by day and night, lashed fast to the oar of business. Let every day have its hour for worship aud intellectual culture and recreation. Show yourself greater than your business. Act not as though after death yon would enter upon an eternity of railroad stocks and coffees and ribbons. Roast not your manhood before the perpetual fires of anxiety. With every yard of cloth you sell, throw not in your soul to boot. Usd firkin aud counting-room desk and hardware crate as the step to glorious usefulness and highest Christian character. Decide onco and forever who shall be master ia your store, you or your business. Again, business men are often tempted to let their calling interfere with the interests of the souL God sends men into the business world to get educated, just as boys

are sent to school and college. Purchase and sale, loss and gain, disappointment and rasping, prosperity, the dishonesty, of others, panic and bank suspension, are but different lessons in the school. Tho more business, the more means of grace. Many have gone through wildest panic unhurt. “Areyou not afraid you will breakl" said 1 some one to a merchant iu time of great commercial excitement. He replied, “Aye, I shall break wbeu the fifteenth Psalm breaks, in the fifteenth verse, ‘call upon me in the day of trouble aud I will deliver thee.’" The store and the counting-house have developed some of the most stalwart characters. Perhaps originally they had but little sprightliness and force, but two or three hard business thumps woke them up from their lethargy, and there came a - thorough development lu their hearts of oil that was good and holy and energetic aui tremendous, and they have become thd front men in Christ’s great army, as well as light-houses in the great world of traffic. But business has been perpetual depletion to many a man. It first pulled out of him all benevolence, next all amiability, next telL-ielfigbSs'—aspiration, next all concience, and though he entered his vocation with large heart and noble character he goes out of ita skeleton, enough to scarce a ghost Men appreciate the Importance of having a good business stand, a store on the right side of the street, or the right block. , Now every place of business is a good stand for spiritual culture. God’s angels hover over the world of trafflo to sustain and build up those who are trying to do their duty. Tomorrow if In your place of worldly engagement you will listen for it, you may hear a sound louder than the rattle of drays and the shuffle of feet aud the chink of dollars stealing into your soul, saying, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all other things shall be added unto you.” Yet some of those sharpest at a bargain are cheated out of their immortal blessedness by stratagems more palpable than any “drop-game" of tho street. They m ake investments in things everlastingly below par. They put their valuables In a safe not fire-proof They give full credit to influences that will not be able to pay one cent on a dollar. They plunge into a labyrinth from which no bankrupt law or “two-thirds enactment” will ever extricate them. They take into their partnership the world, the flesh, and the devil, and the enemy of all righteousness will boast through eternal ages that the man who in all his business life could not be outwitted or over-reached, at last tumbled into spiritual defalcation, ana vjas s wind lea out of heaven.

Perhaps some of you saw the fire lu New York in 1535. Aged men tell us that 11 beggared all description. Some stood on tbe house-tops of Brooklyn,' and looked at the red ruin that swept down the streets, and threatened to obliterate the metropolis. •But tbe commercial world will yet b« startled by a greater conflagration, even the last. Bills of exchange, policies of insurance, mortgages and bonds and government securities, will be consumed in one lick of the flamer The Bourse and the United States Mint will turd to ashes. Gold will run molten into the dust of tbe street Exchanges aud granite blocks of merchandise will fall with a crash that will make the earth tremble. Tbe flashing-up of the great light will show the righteous tbe way to tbeli thrones. Their best treasures in heaven, they will go up and take possession of them. The toils es business life, which racked their brain and rasped their nerves for so many years, will have forever qeased. “There the Wicked cease trom troubling and the weary are at rest" • i