MONEY—ITS USE AND ABUSE.
“Not for to hide it in a hedge,
Nor for a train attendant,
But for the glorious privilege
Of being independent.”—_Burns_.
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.”—_Shakepeare_.
Never treat money affairs with levity—Money is character.—_Sir E. L.
Bulwer Lytton_.
HOW a man uses money—makes it, saves it, and spends it—is perhaps one of
the best tests of practical wisdom. Although money ought by no means to
be regarded as a chief end of man’s life, neither is it a trifling
matter, to be held in philosophic contempt, representing as it does to so
large an extent, the means of physical comfort and social well-being.
Indeed, some of the finest qualities of human nature are intimately
related to the right use of money; such as generosity, honesty, justice,
and self-sacrifice; as well as the practical virtues of economy and
providence. On the other hand, there are their counterparts of avarice,
fraud, injustice, and selfishness, as displayed by the inordinate lovers
of gain; and the vices of thriftlessness, extravagance, and improvidence,
on the part of those who misuse and abuse the means entrusted to them.
“So that,” as is wisely observed by Henry Taylor in his thoughtful ‘Notes
from Life,’ “a right measure and manner in getting, saving, spending,
giving, taking, lending, borrowing, and bequeathing, would almost argue a
perfect man.”
Comfort in worldly circumstances is a con ion which every man is
justified in striving to attain by all worthy means. It secures that
physical satisfaction, which is necessary for the culture of the better
part of his nature; and enables him to provide for those of his own
household, without which, says the Apostle, a man is “worse than an
infidel.” Nor ought the duty to be any the less indifferent to us, that
the respect which our fellow-men entertain for us in no slight degree
depends upon the manner in which we exercise the opportunities which
present themselves for our honourable advancement in life. The very
effort required to be made to succeed in life with this object, is of
itself an education; stimulating a man’s sense of self-respect, bringing
out his practical qualities, and disciplining him in the exercise of
patience, perseverance, and such like virtues. The provident and careful
man must necessarily be a thoughtful man, for he lives not merely for the
present, but with provident forecast makes arrangements for the future.
He must also be a temperate man, and exercise the virtue of self-denial,
than which nothing is so much calculated to give strength to the
character. John Sterling says truly, that “the worst education which
teaches self denial, is better than the best which teaches everything
else, and not that.” The Romans rightly employed the same word (virtus)
to designate courage, which is in a physical sense what the other is in a
moral; the highest virtue of all being victory over ourselves.
Hence the lesson of self-denial—the sacrificing of a present
gratification for a future good—is one of the last that is learnt. Those
classes which work the hardest might naturally be expected to value the
most the money which they earn. Yet the readiness with which so many are
accustomed to eat up and drink up their earnings as they go, renders them
to a great extent helpless and dependent upon the frugal. There are
large numbers of persons among us who, though enjoying sufficient means
of comfort and independence, are often found to be barely a day’s march
ahead of actual want when a time of pressure occurs; and hence a great
cause of social helplessness and suffering. On one occasion a deputation
waited on Lord John Russell, respecting the taxation levied on the
working classes of the country, when the noble lord took the opportunity
of remarking, “You may rely upon it that the Government of this country
durst not tax the working classes to anything like the extent to which
they tax themselves in their expenditure upon intoxicating drinks alone!”
Of all great public questions, there is perhaps none more important than
this,—no great work of reform calling more loudly for labourers. But it
must be admitted that “self-denial and self-help” would make a poor
rallying cry for the hustings; and it is to be feared that the patriotism
of this day has but little regard for such common things as individual
economy and providence, although it is by the practice of such virtues
only that the genuine independence of the industrial classes is to be
secured. “Prudence, frugality, and good management,” said Samuel Drew,
the philosophical shoemaker, “are excellent artists for mending bad
times: they occupy but little room in any dwelling, but would furnish a
more effectual remedy for the evils of life than any Reform Bill that
ever passed the Houses of Parliament.” Socrates said, “Let him that
would move the world move first himself. ” Or as the old rhyme runs—
“If every one would see
To his own reformation,
How very easily
You might reform a nation.”
It is, however, generally felt to be a far easier thing to reform the
Church and the State than to reform the least of our own bad habits; and
in such matters it is usually found more agreeable to our tastes, as it
certainly is the common practice, to begin with our neighbours rather
than with ourselves.
Any class of men that lives from hand to mouth will ever be an inferior
class. They will necessarily remain impotent and helpless, hanging on to
the skirts of society, the sport of times and seasons. Having no respect
for themselves, they will fail in securing the respect of others. In
commercial crises, such men must inevitably go to the wall. Wanting that
husbanded power which a store of savings, no matter how small, invariably
gives them, they will be at every man’s mercy, and, if possessed of right
feelings, they cannot but regard with fear and trembling the future
possible fate of their wives and children. “The world,” once said Mr.
Cobden to the working men of Huddersfield, “has always been divided into
two classes,—those who have saved, and those who have spent—the thrifty
and the extravagant. The building of all the houses, the mills, the
bridges, and the ships, and the accomplishment of all other great works
which have rendered man civilized and happy, has been done by the savers,
the thrifty; and those who have wasted their resources have always been
their slaves. It has been the law of nature and of Providence that this
should be so; and I were an impostor if I promised any class that they
would advance themselves if they were improvident, thoughtless, and
idle.”
Equally sound was the advice given by Mr. Bright to an assembly of
working men at Rochdale, in 1847, when, after expressing his belief that,
“so far as honesty was concerned, it was to be found in pretty equal
amount among all classes,” he used the following words:—“There is only
one way that is safe for any man, or any number of men, by which they can
maintain their present position if it be a good one, or raise themselves
above it if it be a bad one,—that is, by the practice of the virtues of
industry, frugality, temperance, and honesty. There is no royal road by
which men can raise themselves from a position which they feel to be
uncomfortable and unsatisfactory, as regards their mental or physical
condition, except by the practice of those virtues by which they find
numbers amongst them are continually advancing and bettering themselves.”
There is no reason why the condition of the average workman should not be
a useful, honourable, respectable, and happy one. The whole body of the
working classes might, (with few exceptions) be as frugal, virtuous,
well-informed, and well-conditioned as many individuals of the same class
have already made themselves. What some men are, all without difficulty
might be. Employ the same means, and the same results will follow. That
there should be a class of men who live by their daily labour in every
state is the ordinance of God, and doubtless is a wise and righteous one;
but that this class should be otherwise than frugal, contented,
intelligent, and happy, is not the design of Providence, but springs
solely from the weakness, self-indulgence, and perverseness of man
himself. The healthy spirit of self-help created amongst working people
would more than any other measure serve to raise them as a class, and
this, not by pulling down others, but by levelling them up to a higher
and still advancing standard of religion, intelligence, and virtue. “All
moral philosophy,” says Montaigne, “is as applicable to a common and
private life as to the most splendid. Every man carries the entire form
of the human condition within him.”
When a man casts his glance forward, he will find that the three chief
temporal contingencies for which he has to provide are want of
employment, sickness, and death. The two first he may escape, but the
last is inevitable. It is, however, the duty of the prudent man so to
live, and so to arrange, that the pressure of suffering, in event of
either contingency occurring, shall be mitigated to as great an extent as
possible, not only to himself, but also to those who are dependent upon
him for their comfort and subsistence. Viewed in this light the honest
earning and the frugal use of money are of the greatest importance.
Rightly earned, it is the representative of patient industry and untiring
effort, of temptation resisted, and hope rewarded; and rightly used, it
affords indications of prudence, forethought and self-denial—the true
basis of manly character. Though money represents a crowd of objects
without any real worth or utility, it also represents many things of
great value; not only food, clothing, and household satisfaction, but
personal self-respect and independence. Thus a store of savings is to
the working man as a barricade against want; it secures him a footing,
and enables him to wait, it may be in cheerfulness and hope, until better
days come round. The very endeavour to gain a firmer position in the
world has a certain dignity in it, and tends to make a man stronger and
better. At all events it gives him greater freedom of action, and
enables him to husband his strength for future effort.
But the man who is always hovering on the verge of want is in a state not
far removed from that of slavery. He is in no sense his own master, but
is in constant peril of falling under the bondage of others, and
accepting the terms which they dictate to him. He cannot help being, in
a measure, servile, for he dares not look the world boldly in the face;
and in adverse times he must look either to alms or the poor’s rates. If
work fails him altogether, he has not the means of moving to another
field of employment; he is fixed to his parish like a limpet to its rock,
and can neither migrate nor emigrate.
To secure independence, the practice of simple economy is all that is
necessary. Economy requires neither superior courage nor eminent virtue;
it is satisfied with ordinary energy, and the capacity of average minds.
Economy, at bottom, is but the spirit of order applied in the
administration of domestic affairs: it means management, regularity,
prudence, and the avoidance of waste. The spirit of economy was
expressed by our Divine Master in the words ‘Gather up the fragments that
remain, so that nothing may be lost.’ His omnipotence did not disdain
the small things of life; and even while revealing His infinite power to
the multitude, he taught the pregnant lesson of carefulness of which all
stand so much in need.
Economy also means the power of resisting present gratification for the
purpose of securing a future good, and in this light it represents the
ascendancy of reason over the animal instincts. It is altogether
different from penuriousness: for it is economy that can always best
afford to be generous. It does not make money an idol, but regards it as
a useful agent. As Dean Swift observes, “we must carry money in the
head, not in the heart.” Economy may be styled the daughter of Prudence,
the sister of Temperance, and the mother of Liberty. It is evidently
conservative—conservative of character, of domestic happiness, and social
well-being. It is, in short, the exhibition of self-help in one of its
best forms.
Francis Horner’s father gave him this advice on entering life:—“Whilst I
wish you to be comfortable in every respect, I cannot too strongly
inculcate economy. It is a necessary virtue to all; and however the
shallow part of mankind may despise it, it certainly leads to
independence, which is a grand object to every man of a high spirit.”
Burns’ lines, quoted at the head of this chapter, contain the right idea;
but unhappily his strain of song was higher than his practice; his ideal
better than his habit. When laid on his death-bed he wrote to a friend,
“Alas! Clarke, I begin to feel the worst. Burns’ poor widow, and half a
dozen of his dear little ones helpless orphans;—there I am weak as a
woman’s tear. Enough of this;—’tis half my disease.”
Every man ought so to contrive as to live within his means. This
practice is of the very essence of honesty. For if a man do not manage
honestly to live within his own means, he must necessarily be living
dishonestly upon the means of somebody else. Those who are careless
about personal expenditure, and consider merely their own gratification,
without regard for the comfort of others, generally find out the real
uses of money when it is too late. Though by nature generous, these
thriftless persons are often driven in the end to do very shabby things.
They waste their money as they do their time; draw bills upon the future;
anticipate their earnings; and are thus under the necessity of dragging
after them a load of debts and obligations which seriously affect their
action as free and independent men.
It was a maxim of Lord Bacon, that when it was necessary to economize, it
was better to look after petty savings than to descend to petty gettings.
The loose cash which many persons throw away uselessly, and worse, would
often form a basis of fortune and independence for life. These wasters
are their own worst enemies, though generally found amongst the ranks of
those who rail at the injustice of “the world.” But if a man will not be
his own friend, how can he expect that others will? Orderly men of
moderate means have always something left in their pockets to help
others; whereas your prodigal and careless fellows who spend all never
find an opportunity for helping anybody. It is poor economy, however, to
be a scrub. Narrowmindedness in living and in dealing is generally
short-sighted, and leads to failure. The penny soul, it is said, never
came to twopence. Generosity and liberality, like honesty, prove the
best policy after all. Though Jenkinson, in the ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’
cheated his kind-hearted neighbour Flamborough in one way or another
every year, “Flamborough,” said he, “has been regularly growing in
riches, while I have come to poverty and a gaol.” And practical life
abounds in cases of brilliant results from a course of generous and
honest policy.
The proverb says that “an empty bag cannot stand upright;” neither can a
man who is in debt. It is also difficult for a man who is in debt to be
truthful; hence it is said that lying rides on debt’s back. The debtor
has to frame excuses to his creditor for postponing payment of the money
he owes him; and probably also to contrive falsehoods. It is easy enough
for a man who will exercise a healthy resolution, to avoid incurring the
first obligation; but the facility with which that has been incurred
often becomes a temptation to a second; and very soon the unfortunate
borrower becomes so entangled that no late exertion of industry can set
him free. The first step in debt is like the first step in falsehood;
almost involving the necessity of proceeding in the same course, debt
following debt, as lie follows lie. Haydon, the painter, dated his
decline from the day on which he first borrowed money. He realized the
truth of the proverb, “Who goes a-borrowing, goes a-sorrowing.” The
significant entry in his diary is: “Here began debt and obligation, out
of which I have never been and never shall be extricated as long as I
live.” His Autobiography shows but too painfully how embarrassment in
money matters produces poignant distress of mind, utter incapacity for
work, and constantly recurring humiliations. The written advice which he
gave to a youth when entering the navy was as follows: “Never purchase
any enjoyment if it cannot be procured without borrowing of others.
Never borrow money: it is degrading. I do not say never lend, but never
lend if by lending you render yourself unable to pay what you owe; but
under any circumstances never borrow.” Fichte, the poor student, refused
to accept even presents from his still poorer parents.
Dr. Johnson held that early debt is ruin. His words on the subject are
weighty, and worthy of being held in remembrance. “Do not,” said he,
“accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will
find it a calamity. Poverty takes away so many means of doing good, and
produces so much inability to resist evil, both natural and moral, that
it is by all virtuous means to be avoided. . . . Let it be your first
care, then, not to be in any man’s debt. Resolve not to be poor;
whatever you have spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human
happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues
impracticable and others extremely difficult. Frugality is not only the
basis of quiet, but of beneficence. No man can help others that wants
help himself; we must have enough before we have to spare.”
It is the bounden duty of every man to look his affairs in the face, and
to keep an account of his incomings and outgoings in money matters. The
exercise of a little simple arithmetic in this way will be found of great
value. Prudence requires that we shall pitch our scale of living a
degree below our means, rather than up to them; but this can only be done
by carrying out faithfully a plan of living by which both ends may be
made to meet. John Locke strongly advised this course: “Nothing,” said
he, “is likelier to keep a man within compass than having constantly
before his eyes the state of his affairs in a regular course of account.”
The Duke of Wellington kept an accurate detailed account of all the
moneys received and expended by him. “I make a point,” said he to Mr.
Gleig, “of paying my own bills, and I advise every one to do the same;
formerly I used to trust a confidential servant to pay them, but I was
cured of that folly by receiving one morning, to my great surprise, duns
of a year or two’s standing. The fellow had speculated with my money,
and left my bills unpaid.” Talking of debt his remark was, “It makes a
slave of a man. I have often known what it was to be in want of money,
but I never got into debt.” Washington was as particular as Wellington
was, in matters of business detail; and it is a remarkable fact, that he
did not disdain to scrutinize the smallest outgoings of his
household—determined as he was to live honestly within his means—even
while holding the high office of President of the American Union.
Admiral Jervis, Earl St. Vincent, has told the story of his early
struggles, and, amongst other things, of his determination to keep out of
debt. “My father had a very large family,” said he, “with limited means.
He gave me twenty pounds at starting, and that was all he ever gave me.
After I had been a considerable time at the station [at sea], I drew for
twenty more, but the bill came back protested. I was mortified at this
rebuke, and made a promise, which I have ever kept, that I would never
draw another bill without a certainty of its being paid. I immediately
changed my mode of living, quitted my mess, lived alone, and took up the
ship’s allowance, which I found quite sufficient; washed and mended my
own clothes; made a pair of trousers out of the ticking of my bed; and
having by these means saved as much money as would redeem my honour, I
took up my bill, and from that time to this I have taken care to keep
within my means.” Jervis for six years endured pinching privation, but
preserved his integrity, studied his profession with success, and
gradually and steadily rose by merit and bravery to the highest rank.
Mr. Hume hit the mark when he once stated in the House of Commons—though
his words were followed by “laughter”—that the tone of living in England
is altogether too high. Middle-class people are too apt to live up to
their incomes, if not beyond them: affecting a degree of “style” which is
most unhealthy in its effects upon society at large. There is an
ambition to bring up boys as gentlemen, or rather “genteel” men; though
the result frequently is, only to make them gents. They acquire a taste
for dress, style, luxuries, and amusements, which can never form any
solid foundation for manly or gentlemanly character; and the result is,
that we have a vast number of gingerbread young gentry thrown upon the
world, who remind one of the abandoned hulls sometimes picked up at sea,
with only a monkey on board.
There is a dreadful ambition abroad for being “genteel.” We keep up
appearances, too often at the expense of honesty; and, though we may not
be rich, yet we must seem to be so. We must be “respectable,” though
only in the meanest sense—in mere vulgar outward show. We have not the
courage to go patiently onward in the condition of life in which it has
pleased God to call us; but must needs live in some fashionable state to
which we ridiculously please to call ourselves, and all to gratify the
vanity of that unsubstantial genteel world of which we form a part.
There is a constant struggle and pressure for front seats in the social
amphitheatre; in the midst of which all noble self-denying resolve is
trodden down, and many fine natures are inevitably crushed to death.
What waste, what misery, what bankruptcy, come from all this ambition to
dazzle others with the glare of apparent worldly success, we need not
describe. The mischievous results show themselves in a thousand ways—in
the rank frauds committed by men who dare to be dishonest, but do not
dare to seem poor; and in the desperate dashes at fortune, in which the
pity is not so much for those who fail, as for the hundreds of innocent
families who are so often involved in their ruin.
The late Sir Charles Napier, in taking leave of his command in India, did
a bold and honest thing in publishing his strong protest, embodied in his
last General Order to the officers of the Indian army, against the “fast”
life led by so many young officers in that service, involving them in
ignominious obligations. Sir Charles strongly urged, in that famous
document—what had almost been lost sight of that “honesty is inseparable
from the character of a thorough-bred gentleman;” and that “to drink
unpaid-for champagne and unpaid-for beer, and to ride unpaid-for horses,
is to be a cheat, and not a gentleman.” Men who lived beyond their means
and were summoned, often by their own servants, before Courts of Requests
for debts contracted in extravagant living, might be officers by virtue
of their commissions, but they were not gentlemen. The habit of being
constantly in debt, the Commander-in-chief held, made men grow callous to
the proper feelings of a gentleman. It was not enough that an officer
should be able to fight: that any bull-dog could do. But did he hold his
word inviolate?—did he pay his debts? These were among the points of
honour which, he insisted, illuminated the true gentleman’s and soldier’s
career. As Bayard was of old, so would Sir Charles Napier have all
British officers to be. He knew them to be “without fear,” but he would
also have them “without reproach.” There are, however, many gallant
young fellows, both in India and at home, capable of mounting a breach on
an emergency amidst belching fire, and of performing the most desperate
deeds of valour, who nevertheless cannot or will not exercise the moral
courage necessary to enable them to resist a petty temptation presented
to their senses. They cannot utter their valiant “No,” or “I can’t
afford it,” to the invitations of pleasure and self-enjoyment; and they
are found ready to brave death rather than the ridicule of their
companions.
The young man, as he passes through life, advances through a long line of
tempters ranged on either side of him; and the inevitable effect of
yielding, is degradation in a greater or a less degree. Contact with
them tends insensibly to draw away from him some portion of the divine
electric element with which his nature is charged; and his only mode of
resisting them is to utter and to act out his “no” manfully and
resolutely. He must decide at once, not waiting to deliberate and
balance reasons; for the youth, like “the woman who deliberates, is
lost.” Many deliberate, without deciding; but “not to resolve, _is_ to
resolve.” A perfect knowledge of man is in the prayer, “Lead us not into
temptation.” But temptation will come to try the young man’s strength;
and once yielded to, the power to resist grows weaker and weaker. Yield
once, and a portion of virtue has gone. Resist manfully, and the first
decision will give strength for life; repeated, it will become a habit.
It is in the outworks of the habits formed in early life that the real
strength of the defence must lie; for it has been wisely ordained, that
the machinery of moral existence should be carried on principally through
the medium of the habits, so as to save the wear and tear of the great
principles within. It is good habits, which insinuate themselves into
the thousand inconsiderable acts of life, that really constitute by far
the greater part of man’s moral conduct.
Hugh Miller has told how, by an act of youthful decision, he saved
himself from one of the strong temptations so peculiar to a life of toil.
When employed as a mason, it was usual for his fellow-workmen to have an
occasional treat of drink, and one day two glasses of whisky fell to his
share, which he swallowed. When he reached home, he found, on opening
his favourite book—‘Bacon’s Essays’—that the letters danced before his
eyes, and that he could no longer master the sense. “The condition,” he
says, “into which I had brought myself was, I felt, one of degradation.
I had sunk, by my own act, for the time, to a lower level of intelligence
than that on which it was my privilege to be placed; and though the state
could have been no very favourable one for forming a resolution, I in
that hour determined that I should never again sacrifice my capacity of
intellectual enjoyment to a drinking usage; and, with God’s help, I was
enabled to hold by the determination.” It is such decisions as this that
often form the turning-points in a man’s life, and furnish the foundation
of his future character. And this rock, on which Hugh Miller might have
been wrecked, if he had not at the right moment put forth his moral
strength to strike away from it, is one that youth and manhood alike need
to be constantly on their guard against. It is about one of the worst
and most deadly, as well as extravagant, temptations which lie in the way
of youth. Sir Walter Scott used to say that “of all vices drinking is
the most incompatible with greatness.” Not only so, but it is
incompatible with economy, decency, health, and honest living. When a
youth cannot restrain, he must abstain. Dr. Johnson’s case is the case
of many. He said, referring to his own habits, “Sir, I can abstain; but
I can’t be moderate.”
But to wrestle vigorously and successfully with any vicious habit, we
must not merely be satisfied with contending on the low ground of worldly
prudence, though that is of use, but take stand upon a higher moral
elevation. Mechanical aids, such as pledges, may be of service to some,
but the great thing is to set up a high standard of thinking and acting,
and endeavour to strengthen and purify the principles as well as to
reform the habits. For this purpose a youth must study himself, watch
his steps, and compare his thoughts and acts with his rule. The more
knowledge of himself he gains, the more humble will he be, and perhaps
the less confident in his own strength. But the discipline will be
always found most valuable which is acquired by resisting small present
gratifications to secure a prospective greater and higher one. It is the
noblest work in self-education—for
“Real glory
Springs from the silent conquest of ourselves,
And without that the conqueror is nought
But the first slave.”
Many popular books have been written for the purpose of communicating to
the public the grand secret of making money. But there is no secret
whatever about it, as the proverbs of every nation abundantly testify.
“Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.”
“Diligence is the mother of good luck.” “No pains no gains.” “No sweat
no sweet.” “Work and thou shalt have.” “The world is his who has
patience and industry.” “Better go to bed supperless than rise in debt.”
Such are specimens of the proverbial philosophy, embodying the hoarded
experience of many generations, as to the best means of thriving in the
world. They were current in people’s mouths long before books were
invented; and like other popular proverbs they were the first codes of
popular morals. Moreover they have stood the test of time, and the
experience of every day still bears witness to their accuracy, force, and
soundness. The proverbs of Solomon are full of wisdom as to the force of
industry, and the use and abuse of money:—“He that is slothful in work is
brother to him that is a great waster.” “Go to the ant, thou sluggard;
consider her ways, and be wise.” Poverty, says the preacher, shall come
upon the idler, “as one that travelleth, and want as an armed man;” but
of the industrious and upright, “the hand of the diligent maketh rich.”
“The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty; and drowsiness shall
clothe a man with rags.” “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he
shall stand before kings.” But above all, “It is better to get wisdom
than gold; for wisdom is better than rubies, and all the things that may
be desired are not to be compared to it.”
Simple industry and thrift will go far towards making any person of
ordinary working faculty comparatively independent in his means. Even a
working man may be so, provided he will carefully husband his resources,
and watch the little outlets of useless expenditure. A penny is a very
small matter, yet the comfort of thousands of families depends upon the
proper spending and saving of pennies. If a man allows the little
pennies, the results of his hard work, to slip out of his fingers—some to
the beershop, some this way and some that—he will find that his life is
little raised above one of mere animal drudgery. On the other hand, if
he take care of the pennies—putting some weekly into a benefit society or
an insurance fund, others into a savings’ bank, and confiding the rest to
his wife to be carefully laid out, with a view to the comfortable
maintenance and education of his family—he will soon find that this
attention to small matters will abundantly repay him, in increasing
means, growing comfort at home, and a mind comparatively free from fears
as to the future. And if a working man have high ambition and possess
richness in spirit,—a kind of wealth which far transcends all mere
worldly possessions—he may not only help himself, but be a profitable
helper of others in his path through life. That this is no impossible
thing even for a common labourer in a workshop, may be illustrated by the
remarkable career of Thomas Wright of Manchester, who not only attempted
but succeeded in the reclamation of many criminals while working for
weekly wages in a foundry.
Accident first directed Thomas Wright’s attention to the difficulty
encountered by liberated convicts in returning to habits of honest
industry. His mind was shortly possessed by the subject; and to remedy
the evil became the purpose of his life. Though he worked from six in
the morning till six at night, still there were leisure minutes that he
could call his own—more especially his Sundays—and these he employed in
the service of convicted criminals; a class then far more neglected than
they are now. But a few minutes a day, well employed, can effect a great
deal; and it will scarcely be credited, that in ten years this working
man, by steadfastly holding to his purpose, succeeded in rescuing not
fewer than three hundred felons from continuance in a life of villany!
He came to be regarded as the moral physician of the Manchester Old
Bailey; and where the Chaplain and all others failed, Thomas Wright often
succeeded. Children he thus restored reformed to their parents; sons and
daughters otherwise lost, to their homes; and many a returned convict did
he contrive to settle down to honest and industrious pursuits. The task
was by no means easy. It required money, time, energy, prudence, and
above all, character, and the confidence which character invariably
inspires. The most remarkable circumstance was that Wright relieved many
of these poor outcasts out of the comparatively small wages earned by him
at foundry work. He did all this on an income which did not average,
during his working career, 100_l._ per annum; and yet, while he was able
to bestow substantial aid on criminals, to whom he owed no more than the
service of kindness which every human being owes to another, he also
maintained his family in comfort, and was, by frugality and carefulness,
enabled to lay by a store of savings against his approaching old age.
Every week he apportioned his income with deliberate care; so much for
the indispensable necessaries of food and clothing, so much for the
landlord, so much for the schoolmaster, so much for the poor and needy;
and the lines of distribution were resolutely observed. By such means
did this humble workman pursue his great work, with the results we have
so briefly described. Indeed, his career affords one of the most
remarkable and striking illustrations of the force of purpose in a man,
of the might of small means carefully and sedulously applied, and, above
all, of the power which an energetic and upright character invariably
exercises upon the lives and conduct of others.
There is no discredit, but honour, in every right walk of industry,
whether it be in tilling the ground, making tools, weaving fabrics, or
selling the products behind a counter. A youth may handle a yard-stick,
or measure a piece of ribbon; and there will be no discredit in doing so,
unless he allows his mind to have no higher range than the stick and
ribbon; to be as short as the one, and as narrow as the other. “Let not
those blush who _have_,” said Fuller, “but those who _have not_ a lawful
calling.” And Bishop Hall said, “Sweet is the destiny of all trades,
whether of the brow or of the mind.” Men who have raised themselves from
a humble calling, need not be ashamed, but rather ought to be proud of
the difficulties they have surmounted. An American President, when asked
what was his coat-of-arms, remembering that he had been a hewer of wood
in his youth, replied, “A pair of shirt sleeves.” A French doctor once
taunted Flechier, Bishop of Nismes, who had been a tallow-chandler in his
youth, with the meanness of his origin, to which Flechier replied, “If
you had been born in the same condition that I was, you would still have
been but a maker of candles.”
Nothing is more common than energy in money-making, quite independent of
any higher object than its accumulation. A man who devotes himself to
this pursuit, body and soul, can scarcely fail to become rich. Very
little brains will do; spend less than you earn; add guinea to guinea;
scrape and save; and the pile of gold will gradually rise. Osterwald,
the Parisian banker, began life a poor man. He was accustomed every
evening to drink a pint of beer for supper at a tavern which he visited,
during which he collected and pocketed all the corks that he could lay
his hands on. In eight years he had collected as many corks as sold for
eight louis d’ors. With that sum he laid the foundations of his
fortune—gained mostly by stock-jobbing; leaving at his death some three
millions of francs. John Foster has cited a striking illustration of
what this kind of determination will do in money-making. A young man who
ran through his patrimony, spending it in profligacy, was at length
reduced to utter want and despair. He rushed out of his house intending
to put an end to his life, and stopped on arriving at an eminence
overlooking what were once his estates. He sat down, ruminated for a
time, and rose with the determination that he would recover them. He
returned to the streets, saw a load of coals which had been shot out of a
cart on to the pavement before a house, offered to carry them in, and was
employed. He thus earned a few pence, requested some meat and drink as a
gratuity, which was given him, and the pennies were laid by. Pursuing
this menial labour, he earned and saved more pennies; accumulated
sufficient to enable him to purchase some cattle, the value of which he
understood, and these he sold to advantage. He proceeded by degrees to
undertake larger transactions, until at length he became rich. The
result was, that he more than recovered his possessions, and died an
inveterate miser. When he was buried, mere earth went to earth. With a
nobler spirit, the same determination might have enabled such a man to be
a benefactor to others as well as to himself. But the life and its end
in this case were alike sordid.
To provide for others and for our own comfort and independence in old
age, is honourable, and greatly to be commended; but to hoard for mere
wealth’s sake is the characteristic of the narrow-souled and the miserly.
It is against the growth of this habit of inordinate saving that the wise
man needs most carefully to guard himself: else, what in youth was simple
economy, may in old age grow into avarice, and what was a duty in the one
case, may become a vice in the other. It is the _love_ of money—not
money itself—which is “the root of evil,”—a love which narrows and
contracts the soul, and closes it against generous life and action.
Hence, Sir Walter Scott makes one of his characters declare that “the
penny siller slew more souls than the naked sword slew bodies.” It is
one of the defects of business too exclusively followed, that it
insensibly tends to a mechanism of character. The business man gets into
a rut, and often does not look beyond it. If he lives for himself only,
he becomes apt to regard other human beings only in so far as they
minister to his ends. Take a leaf from such men’s ledger and you have
their life.
Worldly success, measured by the accumulation of money, is no doubt a
very dazzling thing; and all men are naturally more or less the admirers
of worldly success. But though men of persevering, sharp, dexterous, and
unscrupulous habits, ever on the watch to push opportunities, may and do
“get on” in the world, yet it is quite possible that they may not possess
the slightest elevation of character, nor a particle of real goodness.
He who recognizes no higher logic than that of the shilling, may become a
very rich man, and yet remain all the while an exceedingly poor creature.
For riches are no proof whatever of moral worth; and their glitter often
serves only to draw attention to the worthlessness of their possessor, as
the light of the glowworm reveals the grub.
The manner in which many allow themselves to be sacrificed to their love
of wealth reminds one of the cupidity of the monkey—that caricature of
our species. In Algiers, the Kabyle peasant attaches a gourd, well
fixed, to a tree, and places within it some rice. The gourd has an
opening merely sufficient to admit the monkey’s paw. The creature comes
to the tree by night, inserts his paw, and grasps his booty. He tries to
draw it back, but it is clenched, and he has not the wisdom to unclench
it. So there he stands till morning, when he is caught, looking as
foolish as may be, though with the prize in his grasp. The moral of this
little story is capable of a very extensive application in life.
The power of money is on the whole over-estimated. The greatest things
which have been done for the world have not been accomplished by rich
men, nor by subscription lists, but by men generally of small pecuniary
means. Christianity was propagated over half the world by men of the
poorest class; and the greatest thinkers, discoverers, inventors, and
artists, have been men of moderate wealth, many of them little raised
above the condition of manual labourers in point of worldly
circumstances. And it will always be so. Riches are oftener an
impediment than a stimulus to action; and in many cases they are quite as
much a misfortune as a blessing. The youth who inherits wealth is apt to
have life made too easy for him, and he soon grows sated with it, because
he has nothing left to desire. Having no special object to struggle for,
he finds time hang heavy on his hands; he remains morally and spiritually
asleep; and his position in society is often no higher than that of a
polypus over which the tide floats.
“His only labour is to kill the time,
And labour dire it is, and weary woe.”
Yet the rich man, inspired by a right spirit, will spurn idleness as
unmanly; and if he bethink himself of the responsibilities which attach
to the possession of wealth and property he will feel even a higher call
to work than men of humbler lot. This, however, must be admitted to be
by no means the practice of life. The golden mean of Agur’s perfect
prayer is, perhaps, the best lot of all, did we but know it: “Give me
neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me.” The
late Joseph Brotherton, M.P., left a fine motto to be recorded upon his
monument in the Peel Park at Manchester,—the declaration in his case
being strictly true: “My richness consisted not in the greatness of my
possessions, but in the smallness of my wants.” He rose from the
humblest station, that of a factory boy, to an eminent position of
usefulness, by the simple exercise of homely honesty, industry,
punctuality, and self-denial. Down to the close of his life, when not
attending Parliament, he did duty as minister in a small chapel in
Manchester to which he was attached; and in all things he made it appear,
to those who knew him in private life, that the glory he sought was _not_
“to be seen of men,” or to excite their praise, but to earn the
consciousness of discharging the every-day duties of life, down to the
smallest and humblest of them, in an honest, upright, truthful, and
loving spirit.
“Respectability,” in its best sense, is good. The respectable man is one
worthy of regard, literally worth turning to look at. But the
respectability that consists in merely keeping up appearances is not
worth looking at in any sense. Far better and more respectable is the
good poor man than the bad rich one—better the humble silent man than the
agreeable well-appointed rogue who keeps his gig. A well balanced and
well-stored mind, a life full of useful purpose, whatever the position
occupied in it may be, is of far greater importance than average worldly
respectability. The highest object of life we take to be, to form a
manly character, and to work out the best development possible, of body
and spirit—of mind, conscience, heart, and soul. This is the end: all
else ought to be regarded but as the means. Accordingly, that is not the
most successful life in which a man gets the most pleasure, the most
money, the most power or place, honour or fame; but that in which a man
gets the most manhood, and performs the greatest amount of useful work
and of human duty. Money is power after its sort, it is true; but
intelligence, public spirit, and moral virtue, are powers too, and far
nobler ones. “Let others plead for pensions,” wrote Lord Collingwood to
a friend; “I can be rich without money, by endeavouring to be superior to
everything poor. I would have my services to my country unstained by any
interested motive; and old Scott {313} and I can go on in our
cabbage-garden without much greater expense than formerly.” On another
occasion he said, “I have motives for my conduct which I would not give
in exchange for a hundred pensions.”
The making of a fortune may no doubt enable some people to “enter
society,” as it is called; but to be esteemed there, they must possess
qualities of mind, manners, or heart, else they are merely rich people,
nothing more. There are men “in society” now, as rich as Croesus, who
have no consideration extended towards them, and elicit no respect. For
why? They are but as money-bags: their only power is in their till. The
men of mark in society—the guides and rulers of opinion—the really
successful and useful men—are not necessarily rich men; but men of
sterling character, of disciplined experience, and of moral excellence.
Even the poor man, like Thomas Wright, though he possess but little of
this world’s goods, may, in the enjoyment of a cultivated nature, of
opportunities used and not abused, of a life spent to the best of his
means and ability, look down, without the slightest feeling of envy, upon
the person of mere worldly success, the man of money-bags and acres.