VII.
A SERMON OF MERCHANTS.—PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1846.
ECCLESIASTICUS XXVII. 2.
As a nail sticketh fast between the joinings of the stones; so doth sin stick close between buying and selling.
I ask your attention to a Sermon of Merchants, their Position, Temptations, Opportunities, Influence and Duty. For the present purpose, men may be distributed into four classes.
I. Men who create new material for human use, either by digging it out of mines and quarries, fishing it out of the sea, or raising it out of the land. These are direct producers.
II. Men who apply their head and hands to this material and transform it into other shapes, fitting it for human use; men that make grain into flour and bread, cotton into cloth, iron into needles or knives, and the like. These are indirect producers; they create not the material, but its fitness, use, or beauty. They are manufacturers.