457. Behind the Counter

Behind the Counter

Act_16:14 : ’93And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshiped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened.’94

Pro_22:29 : ’93Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings.’94

The first passage introduces to you Lydia, a Christian merchant. Her business is to deal in purple cloths or silks. She is not a giggling nonentity, but a practical woman, not ashamed to work for her living. All the other women of Philippi and Thyatira have been forgotten, but God has made immortal in our text Lydia, the Christian saleswoman. The other text shows you a man with head and hand and heart and foot all busy toiling on up until he gains a princely success. ’93Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings.’94 In these two passages there is great encouragement for men and women who will be busy, but no solace for those who are waiting for good luck to show them, at the foot of the rainbow, a casket of buried gold. It is folly for anybody in this world to wait for something to turn up. It will turn down. The law of thrift is as inexorable as the law of the tides. Fortune, the magician, may wave her wand in that direction until castles and palaces come; but she will, after a while, invert the same wand, and all the splendors will vanish into thin air.

There are certain styles of behavior which lead to usefulness, honor, and permanent success; and there are certain styles of behavior which lead to debt, dishonor, and moral default. I would like to fire the ambition of young people. I have no sympathy with those who would prepare young folks for life by whittling down their expectations. That man or woman will be worth nothing to Church or State who begins life cowed down. The business of Christianity is not to quench, but to direct human ambition. Therefore it is that I utter words of encouragement to those who are occupied as clerks in the stores and shops and banking-houses of the country. You say, ’93Why select one class, and talk to one specially?’94 For the same reason that a physician does not open the door of a hospital and throw in a bushel of prescriptions, saying, ’93Come, now, and get your medicine.’94 He first feels the pulse, watches the symptoms, and then prescribes for that particular case. So I must be specific.

Clerks are not an exceptional class. They belong to a great company of tens of thousands who are amid circumstances which will either make or break them for time and for eternity. Many of these people have already achieved a Christian manliness and a Christian womanliness, which will be their passport to any position. I have seen their trials; I have watched their perplexities. There are evils abroad which need to be hunted down, and dragged out into the noonday light.

In the first place, I counsel clerks to remember that for the most part their clerkship is only a school from which they are to be graduated. It takes about eight years to acquire one of the learned professions. It takes about eight years to get to be a merchant. Some of you will be clerks all your lives, but the vast majority of you are only in a transient position. After a while, some December day, the head men of the firm will call you into the private office, and they will say to you, ’93Now, you have done well by us; we are going to do well by you. We invite you to have an interest in our concern.’94 You will bow to that edict very gracefully. Getting into a street car to go home, an old comrade will meet you and say, ’93What makes you look so happy to-night?’94 ’93Oh,’94 you will say, ’93nothing, nothing.’94 But in a few days your name will blossom on the sign. Either in the store or bank where you are now, or in some other store or bank, you will take a higher position than that which you now occupy. So I feel I am addressing people who will yet have their hands on the helm of the world’92s commerce, and you will turn it this way or that; now clerks, but to be bankers, importers, insurance-company directors, shippers, contractors, superintendents of railroads’97your voice mighty ’93on ’91Change’94’97standing foremost in the great financial and religious enterprises of the day. For, though we who are in the professions may, on the platform, plead for the philanthropies, after all, the merchants must come forth with their millions to sustain the movement. Be patient and diligent, therefore, in this transient position. You are now where you can learn things you can never learn in any other place. What you consider your disadvantages are your grand opportunities. You see an affluent father some day come down on a prominent street with his son, who has just graduated from the university, and establishing him in business, putting fifty thousand dollars of capital in the store. Well, you are envious. You say, ’93Oh, if I only had a chance like that young man’97if I only had a father to put fifty thousand dollars in a business for me, then I would have some chance in the world.’94 Be not envious. You have advantages over that young man which he has not over you. As well might I come down to the docks when a vessel is about to sail for Valparaiso, and say: ’93Let me pilot this ship out of the Narrows.’94 Why, I would sink crew and cargo before I got out of the harbor, simply because I know nothing about pilotage. Wealthy sea-captains put their sons before the mast, for the reason that they know that it is the only place where they can learn to be successful sailors. It is only under drill that people get to understand pilotage and navigation, and I want you to understand that it takes no more skill to conduct a vessel out of the harbor and across the sea than to steer a commercial establishment clear of the rocks.

You see every day the folly of people going into a business they know nothing about. A man makes a fortune in one business; thinks there is another occupation more comfortable; goes into it and sinks all. Many of the commercial establishments of our cities are giving to their clerks a mercantile education as thorough as Yale or Harvard or Princeton are giving scientific attainment to the students matriculated. The reason there are so many men foundering in business from year to year is because their early mercantile education was neglected. Ask these men high in commercial circles and they will tell you they thank God for this severe discipline of their early clerkship.

You can afford to endure the wilderness march, if it is going to end in the vineyards and orchards of the promised land.

But you say: ’93Will the female clerks in our stores have promotion?’94 Yes. Time is coming when women will be as well paid for their toil in mercantile circles as men are now paid for their toil. Time is coming when a woman will be allowed to do anything she can do well. It is only a little while ago when women knew nothing of telegraphy, and they were kept out of a great many commercial circles where they are now welcome; and the time will go on until the woman who at one counter in a store sells five thousand dollars’92 worth of goods in a year will get as high a salary as the man who at the other counter of the same store sells five thousand dollars’92 worth of goods. All honor to Lydia, the Christian saleswoman. And in passing, I may as well say that you merchants who have female clerks in your stores ought to treat them with great courtesy and kindness. When they a:;, not positively on duty, let them sit down. In England and the United States, physicians have protested against the habit of compelling the women clerks in the stores to stand when it was not necessary for them to stand. Therefore I add to the protest of physicians the protest of the Christian Church, and in the name of good health, and of that God who has made her constitution more delicate than man’92s, I demand that you let her sit down.

The second counsel I have to give to the clerks is that you seek out what are the lawful regulations of your establishment, and then submit to them. Every well-ordered house has its usages. In military life, on ship’92s deck, in commercial life, there must be order and discipline. Those people who do not learn how to obey will never know how to command. I will tell you what young man will reach ruin, financial and moral: it is the young man who thrusts his thumb into his vest and says: ’93Nobody shall dictate to me, I am my own master; I will not submit to the regulations of this house.’94 Between an establishment in which all the employees are under thorough discipline and the establishment in which the employees do about as they choose, lies the whole difference between success and failure’97between rapid accumulation and utter bankruptcy. Do not come to the store ten minutes after the time. Be there within two seconds, and let it be two seconds before, instead of two seconds after. Do not think anything too insignificant to do well. Do not say: ’93It’92s only just once.’94 From the most important transaction in commerce down to the particular style in which you tie a string around a bundle, obey orders. Do not get easily disgusted. While others in the store may lounge or fret or complain, you go with ready hands and cheerful face and contented spirit to your work. When the bugle sounds, the good soldier asks no questions, but shoulders his knapsack, fills his cartridge case, and listens for the command of ’93March!’94 Do not get the idea that your interests and those of your employer are antagonistic. His success will be your honor. His embarrassment will be your dismay. Expose none of the frailties of the firm. Tell no store secrets. Do not blab. Rebuff those persons who come to find out from clerks what ought never be known outside the store. Do not be among those young men who take on a mysterious air when something is said against the firm that employs them, as much as to say: ’93I could tell you some things if I would, but I won’92t.’94 Do not be among those who imagine they can build themselves up by pulling somebody else down. Be not ashamed to be a subaltern.

Again, I counsel clerks to search out what are the unlawful and dishonest demands of an establishment, and resist them. In the six thousand years that have passed, there has never been an occasion when it was one’92s duty to sin against God. It is never right to do wrong. If the head men of the firm expect of you dishonesty, disappoint them. ’93Oh,’94 you say: ’93I should lose my place then.’94 Better lose your place than lose your soul. But you will not lose your place. Christian heroism is always honored. You go to the head man of your store and say: ’93Sir, I want to serve you; I want to oblige you; it is from no lack of industry on my part, but this thing seems to me to be wrong, and it is a sin against my conscience, it is a sin against God, and I beg you, sir, to excuse me.’94 He may flush up and swear, but he will cool down, and he will have more admiration for you than for those who submit to his evil dictation; and while they sink, you will rise. Do not give up your character, young man, because of seeming temporary advantage. Under God, that is the only thing you have to build on. Give up that, you give up everything. That employer asks a young man to hurt himself for time and for eternity who expects him to make a wrong entry, or change an invoice, or say goods cost so much when they cost less, or impose upon the verdancy of a customer, or misrepresent a style of fabric. How dare he demand of you anything so insolent!

There is one style of temptation that comes on a great many of our clerks, and that is upon those who are engaged in what is called ’93drumming.’94 Now, that occupation is just as honorable as any other, if it be conducted in accord with one’92s conscience. In this day, when there are so many rivalries in business, all our commercial establishments ought to have men abroad who are seeking out for opportunities of merchandise. There can be no objection to that. But there are professed Christian merchants in the week-night prayer meeting who have clerks abroad in New York conducting merchants of Cincinnati and Chicago and St. Louis through the debaucheries of the great town, in order to secure their custom for the store. There are in stores in New York and Brooklyn drawers in which there are kept moneys which the clerks are to go to and get whatever they want to conduct these people through the dissipations of the city. The head men of the firm know it, and in some places actually demand it’97professed Christian merchants. One would think that the prayer would freeze on their lips, and they would fall back dead at the sound of their own song. What chance is there for young men when commercial establishments expect such things. O young men, disappoint the expectation of that firm’97disappoint those customers, if these things are expected of you! You may sell an extra case of goods; you may sell an extra roll of silk; but the trouble is, you may have to throw your soul to boot in the bargain.

Again, I counsel all clerks to conquer the trials of their particular position. One great trial for clerks is the inconsideration of customers. There are people who are entirely polite everywhere else, but gruff and dictatorial and contemptible when they come into a store to buy anything. There are thousands of men and women who go from store to store to price things, without any idea of purchase. They are not satisfied until every roll of goods is brought down and they have pointed out all the real or imaginary defects. They try on all kinds of kid gloves, and stretch them out of shape, and they put on all styles of cloak and walk to the mirror to see how it would look, and then they sail out of the store, saying, ’93I will not take it today,’94 which means, ’93I don’92t want it at all,’94 leaving the clerk amid a wreck of ribbons and laces and cloths to smooth out a thousand dollars’92 worth of goods’97not one cent of which did that man or woman buy or expect to buy. Now I call that dishonesty on the part of the customer. If a boy runs into a store and takes a roll of cloth off the counter, and sneaks out into the street, you all join in the cry pell-mell: ’93Stop thief!’94 When I see you go into a store, not expecting to buy anything, but to price things, stealing the time of the clerk, and stealing the time of his employer, I say, too: ’93Stop thief!’94

If I were asked which class of persons most need the grace of God amid their annoyances, I would say: ’93Dry goods clerks.’94 All the indignation of customers about the high prices comes on the clerk. A great war comes. The manufactories are closed. The men go off to battle. The price of goods runs up. A customer comes into a store. ’93How much is that worth?’94 he asks. ’93A dollar.’94 ’93A dollar! Outrageous! A dollar!’94 Why, who is to blame for the fact that it has got to be a dollar? Does the indignation go out to the manufacturers on the banks of the Merrimac, because they have closed up? No. Does the indignation go out toward the employer, who is out at his country seat? No. It comes on the clerk. He got up the war! He levied the taxes! He puts up the rents! Of course, the clerk!

Then a great trial comes to clerks in the fact that they see the parsimonious side of human nature. You talk about lies behind the counter’97there are just as many lies before the counter. Augustine speaks of a man who advertised that he would, on a certain occasion, tell the people what was in their hearts. A great crowd assembled, and he stepped to the front and said, ’93I will tell you what is in your hearts; to buy cheap and sell dear!’94 Oh! lay not aside your urbanity when you come into a store. Treat the clerks like gentlemen and ladies, proving yourself to be a gentleman or a lady. Remember that if the prices are high and your purse is lean, that is no fault of the clerks. And if you have a son or a daughter amid those perplexities of commercial life, and such a one comes home all worn out, be lenient, and know that the martyr at the stake no more certainly needs the grace of God than our young people amid the seven-times heated exasperations of a clerk’92s life.

Then there are all the trials which come to clerks from the treatment of inconsiderate employers. There are professed Christian men who have no more regard for their clerks than they have for the scales on which the sugars are weighed. A clerk is no more than so much store furniture. They often speak of them as ’93the hands.’94 No consideration for their rights or their interests. Not one word of encouragement from sunrise to sunset, nor from January to December. But when anything goes wrong’97a streak of dust on the counter or a box with the cover off’97thunder-showers of scolding. Men imperious, capricious, cranky toward their clerks’97their whole manner as much as to say: ’93All the interest I have in you is to see what I can get out of you.’94

Then there are all the trials of wages’97insufficient wages’97not in such times as these, when if a man gets half his salary for his services he ought to be thankful; but I mean in prosperous times. Some of you remember when the war broke out and all merchandise went up, and merchants were made millionaires in six months by the simple rise in the value of goods. Did the clerk get advantage of that rise? Sometimes, not always. I saw estates gathered in those times over which the curse of God has hung ever since. The cry of unpaid men and women in those stores reached the Lord of Sabaoth, and the indignation of God has been around those establishments ever since; rumbling in the carriage wheels, flashing in the chandeliers, glowing from the crimson upholstery, roaring in the long roll of the tenpin alley. Such men may build up palaces of merchandise heaven high, but after a while a disaster will come along, and will put one hand on this pillar, and another hand on that pillar, and throw itself forward until down will come the whole structure, crushing the worshipers like grapes in a wine-press.

Then there are boys in establishments who are ruined’97in prosperous establishments’97ruined by their lack of compensation. In how many prosperous stores it has been for the last twenty years that boys were given just enough money to teach them how to steal! Some were seized by the police. The vast majority of instances were not known. The head of the firm asked: ’93Where is George now?’94 ’93Oh! he isn’92t here any more.’94 A lad might better starve to death on a blasted heath than take one cent from his employer. Woe be to that employer who unnecessarily puts a temptation in a boy’92s way! There have been great establishments in our cities building marble palaces, their owners dying worth millions and millions and millions, who made a vast amount of their estate out of the blood and muscle and nerve of half-paid clerks. Such men as’97well, I will not mention any name; but I mean men who have gathered up vast estates at the expense of the people who were ground under their heels. ’93Oh,’94 say such merchants, ’93if you don’92t like it here, then go and get a better place.’94 As much as to say, ’93I’92ve got you in my grip, and I mean to hold you; you can’92t get any other place.’94 What a contrast we see between such men and those Christian merchants who are sympathetic with their clerks’97when they pay the salary, acting in this way: ’93This salary that I give you is not all my interest in you. You are an immortal man; you are an immortal woman; I am interested in your present and your everlasting welfare; I want you to understand that, if I am a little higher up in this store, I am beside you in Christian sympathy.’94

There are a great many young men who want a word of encouragement, Christian encouragement. One smile of good cheer would be worth more to them to-morrow morning in their places of business than a present of fifty thousand dollars ten years hence. I remember the apprehension and the tremor of entering a profession! I remember very well the man who greeted me in the ecclesiastical court with the tip ends of the long fingers of the left hand; and I remember the other man who took my hand in both of his and said: ’93God bless you, my brother; you have entered a glorious profession; be faithful to God and he will see you through.’94 Why, I feel this minute the thrill of that hand-shaking, though the man who gave me the Christian grip has been in heaven many years. There are old men today who can look back to forty years ago, when some one said a kind word to them. Now, old men, pay back what you got then. It is a great art for old men to be able to encourage the young. There are many young people in our cities who have come from inland countries of our own State’97from the granite hills of the North, from the savannas of the South, from the prairies of the West. They are here to get their fortune. They are in boarding houses where everybody seems to be thinking of himself. They want companionship and they want Christian encouragement. Give it to them.

My word is to all clerks: be mightier than your temptations. A Sandwich Islander used to think when he slew an enemy all the strength of that enemy came into his own right arm. And I have to tell you that every misfortune you conquer is so much added to your moral power. With Omnipotence for a lever and the throne of God for a fulcrum, you can move earth and heaven. While there are other young men putting the cup of sin to their lips, stoop down and drink out of the fountains of God, and you will rise up strong to thresh the mountains. The ancients used to think that pearls were fallen raindrops, which, touching the surface of the sea, hardened into gems, then dropped to the bottom. I have to tell you today that storms of trial have showered imperishable pearls into many a young man’92s lap. While you have goods to sell, remember you have a soul to save.

In a hospital a Christian captain, wounded a few days before, got delirious, and in the midnight hour he sprang out on the floor of the hospital, thinking he was in the battle, crying: ’93Come on, boys! Forward! Charge!’94 Ah! he was only battling the specters of his own brain. But it is no imaginary conflict into which I call you, young man. There are ten thousand spiritual foes that would capture you. In the name of God, up and at them. After the last store has been closed, after the last bank has gone down, after the shuffle of the quick feet on the custom-house steps has stopped, after the long line of merchantmen on the sea have taken sail of flame, after Brooklyn and New York and London and Vienna have gone down into the grave where Thebes and Babylon and Tyre lie buried, after the great fire-bells of the Judgment Day have tolled at the burning of a world’97on that day all the affairs of banking houses and stores will come up for inspection. Oh! what an opening of account books! Side by side, the clerks and the men who employed them’97the people who owned thread-and-needle stores on the same footing with the Stewarts and the Delanos and the Abbotts and the Barings. Every invoice made out’97all the labels of goods’97all certificates of stock’97all lists of prices’97all private marks of the firm now explained so everybody can understand them. All the maps of cities that were never built, but in which lots were sold. All bargains. All gougings. All snap judgments. All false entries. All adulteration of liquors with copperas and strychnine. All mixing of teas and sugars and coffees and syrups with cheaper material. All embezzlements of trust funds. All swindles in coal and iron and oil and silver and stocks. On that day, when the cities of this world are smoking in the last conflagration, the trial will go on; and down in an avalanche of destruction will go those who wronged man or woman, insulted God and defied the judgment. Oh! that will be a great day for you, honest Christian clerk! No getting up early; no retiring late; no walking around with weary limbs; but a mansion in which to live, and a realm of light and love and joy over which to hold everlasting dominion. Hoist him up from glory to glory and from song to song and from throne to throne; for while others go down into the sea with their gold like a millstone hanging to their neck, this one shall come up the heights of amethyst and alabaster, holding in his right hand the pearl of great price in a sparkling, glittering, flaming casket.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage