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Turn we to the next page. We have entered on the
busy scenes of life, we are surrounded by an
entirely new class of companions; we have changed
our innocent childish playfellows for young
aspirants to commercial and professional celebrity;
we have cast aside all boyish recreations and seek
for those of a more manly character; we mix with
youths older than ourselves and try to catch the
tone of their manners; we find everything new to us,
and of necessity must have some standard to guide
ourselves by; in the selection of this standard we
are insensibly drawn towards the idle and dissolute,
those who in short appear mostly their own
masters (for such is man’s love of independence
that he would almost prefer doing wrong without
control, to doing right under the supervision of
another); after our hours of business we seek their
society, we walk or ride together, visit a tavern or
theatre, play some game of chance, or perhaps retire
with some chosen one to his room and spend the
evening in social converse; we find that we become
by degrees strongly attached to this selected
friend, scarcely moving without him, abiding by
his decision on all occasions, in short he has
become essential to our very existence. At this time
we are in good employ; but at his suggestion we
break our engagement and join him in business; he is
several years our senior, and having lost both his
parents at an early age has just inherited a legacy
of a few thousand dollars; this, to our
inexperienced mind is inexhaustible, especially
when aided by the credit that it will obtain for us
he has, by two, years employment in a wholesale
dry-goods establishment, acquired some knowledge of
the business; he is an experienced financier,
and we have to our limited and biased views most
flattering prospects; but the legitimate dry-goods
business is too slow in its operations for our
partner, and we become speculators—reckless
speculators! To our blind <<402>>partiality his
judgment is all-sufficient, and we never oppose it.
In a few years we make money, a considerable amount,
and our credit of course stands high; but we
find the succeeding year to be one of sad reverses,
and in the year following that we lose all—and
become bankrupts!
This is a heavy blow to us; we are still very young,
and all our brilliant hopes and prospects seem
crushed at once; it completely paralyses us; our
eyes are now opened to the recklessness of our late
dealings, to the many shifts that we had been
compelled to make, to the numberless irregularities
(to call them by no worse name), that we had
practised to carry on a business amounting to ten
times our capital. We now find also that our failure
involves an nearly ruins some honest and industrious
men (for we had bought out the entire stock of
several small manufacturers). All this is exposed to
public view, our business is broken up, our credit
is lost, and we are for the time ruined men. This is
a melancholy page in our history; all, too, recorded
at so early a period; scarcely six years after we
had quitted school. But let us, my respected
friends, review these events; let us see if this
tale of every-day occurrence might not have been
told differently; whether if even our business had
been unsuccessful in the end, it must needs have
been disgraceful—to the breaking up of our
establishment, to the loss of our credit, and our
ultimate ruin.
In
the selection of our companions, and particularly
our friend, our parents’ oft-repeated caution
and advice were unheeded or forgotten; how
frequently have they put us on our guard against
such specious characters as this friend proved to
be; how often have they repeated to us “honesty is
the best policy;” but in our transactions we
entirely discarded such reflections, giving bonds
for thousands which we knew we never could pay,
unless our groundless speculations succeeded beyond
even our own fallacious hopes. Nay, in many
instances, we fear, our names were lent for
accommodation without even the intention of paying,
although we might have been compelled to do so, thus
trading largely on other men’s capital and credit,
for of course these interchanges of kindness were
reciprocal. How often, when pushed by necessity,
have we practised mean subter<<403>>fuge to obtain
time and put off the evil day! Was not all this
dishonest? Decidedly it was.
I
fear that too many of our books of life contain
similar records, and are attended with similar
results. And why is this? Because we disregard the
precepts of the Law of God! Have we “observed the
Sabbath day to keep it holy?” No; we rather
disregarded its very existence. Have we not
slandered our fellow-creature for the purpose of
obtaining his customers? thus “bearing false witness
against our neighbour?” Have we not in the height of
our prosperity sought to obtain possession of his
business premises or his assistants, because we
thought them more desirable than our own? thereby
“coveting our neighbour’s house?” Do we not make
unto ourselves a god from that “which is in the
earth beneath?” and though we do not set it up, and
bow the head, or bend the knee to it (a species of
worship, so called, too often mechanically practised
towards the living God), do we not worship it with
all our hearts and souls? sacrificing all else
for its possession? the duties of a child? of a
husband? of a parent? All, all, are immolated on the
altar of this visionary god!
We
neglected the observance of the lessons so carefully
taught us by our parents, who, watching our heedless
and sinful career, but unable from our headstrong
self-sufficiency to check it, pined away in hopeless
suffering at the disappointment of all their best
hopes, and died a sacrifice to our avarice and
ambition. Our wife too! Oh, pardon, thou patient
participator of all our former sufferings and
deprivations, thou venerable partner of our present
peaceful and tranquil happiness, for thus recalling
to your mind our former sinful course to you; how
did we neglect your wise counsel! your kind and
affectionate solicitude! your gentle and
unobtrusive advice! how did we slight your pure and
holy example, practising as you did all the precepts
of God’s holy Law, to the extent of your ability!
how did our stubborn heart suffer all, all to pass
unheeded! While you observed our sacred Sabbath with
rigid exactness, we were to be seen in our store
transacting business. Our holy festivals were
equally neglected, and we foolishly thought that by
going to Synagogue for an hour or two on Yom Kippur,
and abstaining from food for twenty-four hours,
<<404>>we made full atonement to our God for all our
past misdeeds. Miserable delusion! It is true, that
in the committal of these deadly sins we did not
deliberately plan and execute, but we knew that
we were sinning. When the all-absorbing thirst
for gold would sometimes be interrupted (for it was
never allayed), and a gleam of holy and religious
reflection would burst upon our mind like the
glorious sunlight breaking though the murky clouds,
and shining on the tossed and troubled ocean: did we
hail this heavenly harbinger? did we encourage the
spark and fan it into flame, until it penetrated the
darkest, the deepest recesses of our soul, and
showed its unveiled hideousness to our sight? No! we
rather drove the holy messenger, fresh from the
mercy-seat of God, far, far away from our mind; we
considered it as an intruder; “we should have time
enough for reflection, time enough for repentance.”
This proves that we did not sin from ignorance; but
we had not time to seek into its nature,—we
had not leisure to correct it—our every
moment was occupied in seeking after treasure.
And our children: those beloved pledges of
affection, those buds of promise that we vainly
hoped would open into goodly blossoms, would ripen
into fair and comely fruit, merely by the slight
unfrequent sprinkling of the dew of precept, while
the vivifying showers of example, whose steady and
impressive action on the mind was more certain of
producing vigorous and healthy results, were
entirely neglected by us,—in vain did their anxious
mother send them to the house of God on Sabbaths and
holy days; they saw their father totally neglect the
duties which they were taught were essential to the
correct observance of those days; they saw him
transact his business as usual, they saw him
indulge in a cigar, they saw him ride in an
omnibus, and start on various journeys to
neighbouring cities. Their mother taught them from
their earliest infancy to join her in prayers to God
morning and evening, but they saw not their father
at these gatherings; in the morning his business
demanded his attention too early for him to join
them at prayers, and his early orisons, though
regularly if not very devoutly performed in his
chamber, lost the effect of example on his
offspring. At night he was either out or engaged
<<405>>at home playing some game with his friends,
or, overcome by the fatigues of the day, asleep at
the time when he should have been surrounded by his
children, offering up his fervent thanks to his
Maker for his mercies, and supplicating a
continuance of them to himself and those most dear
to him. How many of us, my aged friends, have
unfortunately cause to repeat with the poet:
“The thorns which I have reaped
Are of the tree I planted, they wound me and I
bleed;
I should have known what fruit would spring from
such a seed.”
We
find then, upon mature consideration, upon viewing
the causes of these lamentable effects,
that our history might have been made to exhibit a
very different record; that, in fact, we had by our
own perverse and sinful course, produced all the
evils that we endured; that, had we been dutiful and
obedient to our venerable and pious parents, and
followed their example, instead of selecting a
standard of our own creation; that, had our minds
been more occupied in seeking our God, the true and
living God, instead of the vain and visionary one
that we had ourselves erected as our guide by night
and day, peace and prosperity would have been our
portion, instead of suffering, disgrace, and ruin!
Here then we find that we were the sinners. Good
example was held up to us, but we would not heed it;
we cannot throw the blame on others; but must
acknowledge ourselves alone responsible for all.
Let us, however, my beloved friends, at this stage
of life, so near our journey’s end, when we know not
how soon we may be called to “that country from
whose bourne no traveler returns,” study to show
a good example only to the youth of our people;
and let them not have cause reproachfully to
say of us, that our practice is not such as
to aid in enforcing obedience to our preaching.
Sexagenarian.
Philadelphia, September 8th, 5611. |
