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Words for the Wise

T >> T.S. Arthur >> Words for the Wise



WORDS FOR THE WISE.

BY T. S. ARTHUR.

PHILADELPHIA:

1851.






PREFACE.





THE title of this book--"WORDS FOR THE WISE"--is too comprehensive
to need explanation. May the lessons it teaches be "sufficient" as
warnings, incentives and examples, to hundreds and thousands who
read them.






CONTENTS.





THE POOR DEBTOR
THE SUNDAY CHRISTIAN
I KNEW HOW IT WOULD BE
JACOB JONES; OR, THE MAN WHO COULDN'T GET ALONG IN THE WORLD
STARTING A NEWSPAPER. AN EXPERIENCE OF MR. JONES
THE WAY OF TRANSGRESSORS
JUST GOING TO DO IT
MAKING HASTE TO BE RICH
LET HER POUT IT OUT
A FINE, GENEROUS FELLOW
TAKING IT FOR GRANTED
LOVE AND LAW






WORDS FOR THE WISE.

THE POOR DEBTOR.





"THERE is one honest man in the world, I am happy to say," remarked
a rich merchant, named Petron, to a friend who happened to call in
upon him.

"Is there, indeed! I am glad to find you have made a discovery of
the fact. Who is the individual entitled to the honourable
distinction?"

"You know Moale, the tailor?"

"Yes. Poor fellow! he's been under the weather for a long time."

"I know. But he's an honest man for all that."

"I never doubted his being honest, Mr. Petron."

"I have reason to know that he is. But I once thought differently.
When he was broken up in business some years ago, he owed me a
little bill, which I tried to get out of him as hard as any one ever
did try for his own. But I dunned and dunned him until weary, and
then, giving him up as a bad case, passed the trifle that he owed me
to account of profit and loss. He has crossed my path a few times
since; but, as I didn't feel toward him as I could wish to feel
toward all men, I treated him with marked coldness. I am sorry for
having done so, for it now appears that I judged him too severely.
This morning he called in of his own free will, and paid me down the
old account. He didn't say any thing about interest, nor did I,
though I am entitled to, and ought to have received it. But, as long
as he came forward of his own accord and settled his bill, after I
had given up all hope of ever receiving it, I thought I might afford
to be a little generous and not say any thing about the interest;
and so I gave him a receipt in full. Didn't I do right?"

"In what respect?" asked the friend.

"In forgiving him the interest, which I might have claimed as well
as not, and which he would, no doubt, have paid down, or brought me
at some future time."

"Oh, yes. You were right to forgive the interest," returned the
friend, but in a tone and with a manner that struck the merchant as
rather singular. "No man should ever take interest on money due from
an unfortunate debtor."

"Indeed! Why not?" Mr. Petron looked surprised. "Is not money always
worth its interest?"

"So it is said. But the poor debtor has no money upon which to make
an interest. He begins the world again with nothing but his ability
to work; and, if saddled with an old debt--principal and
interest--his case is hopeless. Suppose he owes ten thousand
dollars, and, after struggling hard for three or four years, gets
into a position that will enable him to pay off a thousand dollars a
year. There is some chance for him to get out of debt in ten years.
But suppose interest has been accumulating at the rate of some six
hundred dollars a year. His debt, instead of being ten thousand,
will have increased to over twelve thousand dollars by the time he
is in a condition to begin to pay off any thing; and then, instead
of being able to reduce the amount a thousand dollars a year, he
will have to let six hundred go for the annual interest on the
original debt. Four years would have to elapse before, under this
system, he would get his debt down to where it was when he was
broken up in business. Thus, at the end of eight years' hard
struggling, he would not, really, have advanced a step out of his
difficulties. A debt of ten thousand dollars would still be hanging
over him. And if, persevering to the end, he should go on paying the
interest regularly and reducing the principal, some twenty-five
years of his life would be spent in getting free from debt, when
little over half that time would have been required, if his
creditors had, acting from the commonest dictates of humanity,
voluntarily released the interest."

"That is a new view of the case, I must confess--at least new to
me," said Mr. Petron.

"It is the humane view of the case. But, looking to interest alone,
it is the best view for every creditor to take. Many a man who, with
a little effort, might have cancelled, in time, the principal of a
debt unfortunately standing against him, becomes disheartened at
seeing it daily growing larger through the accumulation of interest,
and gives up in despair. The desire to be free from debt spurs many
a man into effort. But make the difficulties in his way so large as
to appear insurmountable, and he will fold his hands in helpless
inactivity. Thousands of dollars are lost every year in consequence
of creditors grasping after too much, and breaking down the hope and
energy of the debtors."

"Perhaps you are right," said Mr. Petron;--"that view of the case
never presented itself to my mind. I don't suppose, however, the
interest on fifty dollars would have broken down Moale."

"There is no telling. It is the last pound, you know, that breaks
the camel's back. Five years have passed since his day of
misfortune. Fifteen dollars for interest are therefore due. I have
my doubts if he could have paid you sixty-five dollars now. Indeed,
I am sure he could not. And the thought of that as a new debt, for
which he had received no benefit whatever, would, it is more than
probable, have produced a discouraged state of mind, and made him
resolve not to pay you any thing at all."

"But that wouldn't have been honest," said the merchant.

"Perhaps not, strictly speaking. To be dishonest is from a set
purpose to defraud; to take from another what belongs to him; or to
withhold from another, when ability exists to pay, what is justly
his due. You would hardly have placed Moale in either of these
positions, if, from the pressure of the circumstances surrounding
him as a poor man and in debt, he had failed to be as active,
industrious, and prudent as he would otherwise have been. We are all
apt to require too much of the poor debtor, and to have too little
sympathy with him. Let the hope of improving your own
condition--which is the mainspring of all your business
operations--be taken away, and instead, let there be only the desire
to pay off old debts through great labour and self-denial, that must
continue for years, and imagine how differently you would think and
feel from what you do now. Nay, more; let the debt be owed to those
who are worth their thousands and tens of a thousands, and who are
in the enjoyment of every luxury and comfort they could desire,
while you go on paying them what you owe, by over-exertion and the
denial to yourself and family of all those little luxuries and
recreations which both so much need, and then say how deeply dyed
would be that dishonesty which would cause you, in a moment of
darker and deeper discouragement than usual, to throw the crushing
weight from your shoulders, and resolve to bear it no longer? You
must leave a man some hope in life if you would keep him active and
industrious in his sphere."

Mr. Petron said nothing in reply to this; but he looked sober. His
friend soon after left.

The merchant, as the reader may infer from his own acknowledgment,
was one of those men whose tendency to regard only their own
interests has become so confirmed a habit, that they can see nothing
beyond the narrow circle of self. Upon debtors he had never looked
with a particle of sympathy; and had, in all cases, exacted his own
as rigidly as if his debtor had not been a creature of human wants
and feelings. What had just been said, however, awakened a new
thought in his mind; and, as he reflected upon the subject, he saw
that there was some reason in what had been said, and felt half
ashamed of his allusion to the interest of the tailor's fifty-dollar
debt.

Not long after, a person came into his store, and from some cause
mentioned the name of Moale.

"He's an honest man--that I am ready to say of him," remarked Mr.
Petron.

"Honest, but very poor," was replied.

"He's doing well now, I believe," said the merchant.

"He's managing to keep soul and body together, and hardly that."

"He's paying off his old debts."

"I know he is; but I blame him for injuring his health and wronging
his family, in order to pay a few hundred dollars to men a thousand
times better off in the world than he is. He brought me twenty
dollars on an old debt yesterday, but I wouldn't touch it. His
misfortunes had long ago cancelled the obligation in my eyes. God
forbid! that with enough to spare, I should take the bread out of
the mouths of a poor man's children."

"Is he so very poor?" asked Mr. Petron, surprised and rebuked at
what he heard.

"He has a family of six children to feed, clothe, and educate; and
he has it to do by his unassisted labour. Since he was broken up in
business some years ago, he has had great difficulties to contend
with, and only by pinching himself and family, and depriving both of
nearly every comfort, has he been able to reduce the old claims that
have been standing against him. But he has shortened his own life
ten years thereby, and has deprived his children of the benefits of
education, except in an extremely limited degree--wrongs that are
irreparable. I honour his stern integrity of character, but think
that he has carried his ideas of honesty too far. God gave him these
children, and they have claims upon him for earthly comforts and
blessings to the extent of his ability to provide. His misfortunes
he could not prevent, and they were sent as much for the
chastisement of those who lost by him as they were for his own. If,
subsequently, his greatest exertion was not sufficient to provide
more than ordinary comforts for the family still dependent upon him,
his first duty was to see that they did not want. If he could not
pay his old debts without injury to his health or wrong to his
family, he was under no obligation to pay them; for it is clear,
that no claims upon us are so imperative as to require us to wrong
others in order to satisfy them."

Here was another new doctrine for the ears of the merchant--doctrine
strange, as well as new. He did not feel quite so comfortable as
before about the recovered debt of fifty dollars. The money still
lay upon his desk. He had not yet entered it upon his cash-book, and
he felt now less inclined to do so than ever. The claims of
humanity, in the abstract, pressed themselves upon him for
consideration, and he saw that they were not to be lightly thrust
aside.

In order to pay the fifty dollars, which had been long due to the
merchant, Mr. Moale had, as alleged, denied himself and family at
every point, and overworked himself to a degree seriously injurious
to his health; but his heart felt lighter after the sense of
obligation was removed.

There was little at home, however, to make him feel cheerful. His
wife, not feeling able to hire a domestic, was worn down with the
care and labour of her large family; the children were, as a
necessary consequence, neglected both in minds and bodies. Alas!
there was no sunshine in the poor man's dwelling.

"Well, Alice," said Mr. Moale, as his wife came and stood by the
board upon which he sat at work, holding her babe in her arms, "I
have paid off another debt, thank heaven?"

"Whose?"

"Petron's. He believed me a rogue and treated me as such. I hope he
thinks differently now."

"I wish all men were as honest in their intentions as you are."

"So do I, Alice. The world would be a much better one than it is, I
am thinking."

"And yet, William," said his wife, "I sometimes think we do wrong to
sacrifice so much to get out of debt. Our children"--

"Alice," spoke up the tailor, quickly, "I would almost sell my body
into slavery to get free from debt. When I think of what I still
owe, I feel as if I would suffocate."

"I know how badly you feel about it, William; but your heart is
honest, and should not that reflection bear you up?"

"What is an honest heart without an honest hand, Alice?" replied the
tailor, bending still to his work.

"The honest heart is the main thing, William; God looks at that. Man
judges only of the action, but God sees the heart and its purposes."

"But what is the purpose without the act?"

"It is all that is required, where no ability to act is given.
William, God does not demand of any one impossibilities."

"Though man often does," said the tailor, bitterly.

There was a pause, broken, at length, by the wife, who said--"And
have you really determined to put John and Henry out to trades? They
are so young."

"I know they are, Alice; too young to leave home. But"--

The tailor's voice became unsteady; he broke off in the middle of
the sentence.

"Necessity requires it to be done," he said, recovering himself;
"and it is of no avail to give way to unmanly weakness. But for this
old debt, we might have been comfortable enough, and able to keep
our children around us until they were of a more fitting age to go
from under their parents' roof. Oh, what a curse is debt!"

"There is more yet to pay?"

"Yes, several hundreds of dollars; but if I fail as I have for a
year past, I will break down before I get through."

"Let us think of our family, William; they have the first claim upon
us. Those to whom money is owed are better off than we are; they
stand in no need of it."

"But is it not justly due, Alice?" inquired the tailor, in a
rebuking voice.

"No more justly due than is food, and raiment, and a _home_ to our
children," replied the tailor's wife, with more than her usual
decision of tone. "God has given us these children, and he will
require an account of the souls committed to our charge. Is not a
human soul of more importance than dollars? A few years, and it will
be out of our power to do our children good; they will grow up, and
bear for ever the marks of neglect and wrong."

"Alice! Alice! for heaven's sake, do not talk in this way!"
exclaimed the tailor, much disturbed.

"William," said the wife, "I am a mother, and a mother's heart can
feel right; nature tells me that it is wrong for us to thrust out
our children before they are old enough to go into the world. Let us
keep them home longer."

"We cannot, and pay off this debt."

"Then let the debt go unpaid for the present. Those to whom it is
owed can receive no harm from waiting; but our children will"--

Just then a man brought in a letter, and, handing it to the tailor,
withdrew. On breaking the seal, Mr. Moale found that it contained
fifty dollars, and read as follows:--

"SIR--Upon reflection, I feel that I ought not to receive from you
the money that was due to me when you became unfortunate some years
ago. I understand that you have a large family, that your health is
not very good, and that you are depriving the one of comforts, and
injuring the other, in endeavouring to pay off your old debts. To
cancel these obligations would be all right--nay, your duty--if you
could do so without neglecting higher and plainer duties. But you
cannot do this, and I cannot receive the money you paid me this
morning. Take it back, and let it be expended in making your family
more comfortable. I have enough, and more than enough for all my
wants, and I will not deprive you of a sum that must be important,
while to me it is of little consequence either as gained or lost.

EDWARD PETRON."

The letter dropped from the tailor's hand; he was overcome with
emotion. His wife, when she understood its purport, burst into
tears.

The merchant's sleep was sweeter that night than it had been for
some time, and so was the sleep of the poor debtor.

The next day Mr. Moale called to see Mr. Petron, to whom, at the
instance of the latter, he gave a full detail of his actual
circumstances. The merchant was touched by his story, and prompted
by true benevolence to aid him in his struggles. He saw most of the
tailor's old creditors, and induced those who had not been paid in
full to voluntarily relinquish their claims, and some of those who
had received money since the poor man's misfortunes, to restore it
as belonging of right to his family. There was not one of these
creditors who did not feel happier by their act of generosity; and
no one can doubt that both the tailor and his family were also
happier. John and Henry were not compelled to leave their home until
they were older and better prepared to endure the privations that
usually attend the boy's first entrance into the world; and help for
the mother in her arduous duties could now be afforded.

No one doubts that the creditor, whose money is not paid to him, has
rights. But too few think of the rights of the poor debtor, who
sinks into obscurity, and often privations, while his heart is
oppressed with a sense of obligations utterly beyond his power to
cancel.






THE SUNDAY CHRISTIAN.





TWO things are required to make a Christian--piety and charity. The
first has relation to worship, and in the last all social duties are
involved. Of the great importance of charity in the Christian
character, some idea may be gained by the pointed question asked by
an apostle--"If you love not your brother whom you have seen, how
can you love God whom you have not seen?" There is no mistaking the
meaning of this. It says, in the plainest language--"Piety without
charity is nothing;" and yet how many thousands and hundreds of
thousands around us expect to get to heaven by Sunday religion
alone! Through the week they reach out their hands for money on the
right and on the left, so eager for its attainment, that little or
no regard is paid to the interests of others; and on Sunday, with a
pious face, they attend church and enter into the most holy acts of
worship, fondly imagining that they can be saved by mere acts of
piety, while no regard for their fellow-man is in their hearts.

Such a man was Brian Rowley. His religion was of so pure a stamp
that it would not bear the world's rough contact, and, therefore, it
was never brought into the world. He left the world to take care of
itself when the Sabbath morning broke; and when the Sabbath morning
closed, he went back into the world to look after his own interests.
Every Sunday he progressed a certain way towards heaven, and then
stood still for a week, in order that he might take proper care of
the dollars and cents.

Business men who had transactions with Mr. Rowley generally kept
their eyes open. If they did not do it at the first operation, they
rarely omitted it afterwards, and for sufficient reason; he was
sharp at making a bargain, and never felt satisfied unless he
obtained some advantage. Men engaged in mercantile pursuits were
looked upon, as a general thing, as ungodly in their lives, and
therefore, in a certain sense, "out-siders." To make good bargains
out of these was only to fight them with their own weapons; and he
was certainly good at such work. In dealing with his brethren of the
same faith he was rather more guarded, and affected a contempt for
carnal things that he did not feel.

We said that the religion of Mr. Rowley did not go beyond the pious
duties of the Sabbath. This must be amended. His piety flowed into
certain benevolent operations of the day; he contributed to the
support of Indian and Foreign Missions, and was one of the managers
on a Tract Board. In the affairs of the Ceylonese and South-Sea
Islanders he took a warm interest, and could talk eloquently about
the heathen.

Not far from Mr. Brian Rowley's place of business was the store of a
man named Lane, whose character had been cast originally in a
different mould. He was not a church-going man, because, as he said,
he didn't want to be "thought a hypocrite." In this he displayed a
weakness. At one time he owned a pew in the same church to which
Rowley was attached, and attended church regularly, although he did
not attach himself to the church, nor receive its ordinances. His
pew was near that of Mr. Rowley, and he had a good opportunity for
observing the peculiar manner in which the latter performed his
devotions. Unfortunately for his good opinion of the pious Sunday
worshipper, they were brought into rather close contact during the
week in matters of business, when Mr. Lane had opportunities of
contrasting his piety and charity. The want of agreement in these
two pre-requisites of a genuine Christian disgusted Lane, and caused
him so much annoyance on Sunday that he finally determined to give
up his pew and remain at home. A disposition to carp at professors
of religion was manifested from this time; the whole were judged by
Rowley as a sample.

One dull day a man named Gregory, a sort of busybody in the
neighbourhood, came into the store of Mr. Lane and said to
him--"What do you think of our friend Rowley? Is he a good
Christian?"

"He's a pretty fair Sunday Christian," replied Lane.

"What is that?" asked the man.

"A hypocrite, to use plain language."

"That's pretty hard talk," said Gregory.

"Do you think so?"

"Yes. When you call a man a hypocrite, you make him out, in my
opinion, about as bad as he can well be."

"Call him a Sunday Christian, then."

"A Sunday Christian?"

"Yes; that is, a man who puts his religion on every Sabbath, as he
does his Sunday coat; and lays it away again carefully on Monday
morning, so that it will receive no injury in every-day contact with
the world."

"I believe with you that Rowley doesn't bring much of his religion
into his business."

"No, nor as much common honesty as would save him from perdition."

"He doesn't expect to be saved by keeping the moral law."

"There'll be a poor chance for him, in my opinion, if he's judged
finally by that code."

"You don't seem to have a very high opinion of our friend Rowley?"

"I own that. I used to go to church; but his pious face was ever
before me, and his psalm-singing ever in my ears. Was it possible to
look at him and not think of his grasping, selfish, overreaching
conduct in all his business transactions through the week? No, it
was not possible for me. And so, in disgust, I gave up my pew, and
haven't been to church since."

The next man whom Gregory met he made the repository of what Lane
had said about Rowley. This person happened to be a member of the
church, and felt scandalized by the remarks. After a little
reflection he concluded to inform Mr. Rowley of the free manner in
which Mr. Lane had spoken of him.

"Called me a hypocrite!" exclaimed the indignant Mr. Rowley, as soon
as he was advised of the free manner in which Mr. Lane had talked
about him.

"So I understand. Gregory was my informant."

Mr. Gregory was called upon, and confirmed the statement. Rowley was
highly indignant, and while the heat of his anger was upon him,
called at the store of Mr. Lane, in company with two members of his
church, who were not at all familiar with his business character,
and, therefore, held him in pretty high estimation as a man of piety
and sincerity.

The moment Mr. Lane saw these three men enter his place of business,
he had a suspicion of their errand.

"Can I have some private conversation with you?" asked Mr. Rowley,
with a countenance as solemn as the grave.

"Certainly," replied Mr. Lane, not the least discomposed. "Walk back
into my counting-room. We shall be entirely alone there. Do you wish
your friends present?"

"I do," was gravely replied; "I brought them for that purpose."

"Walk back, gentlemen," said Lane, as he turned to lead the way.

The four men retired to the little office of the merchant in the
back part of the store. After they were seated, Lane said:

"Well, Mr. Rowley, I am ready to hear what you have to say."

Mr. Rowley cleared his throat two or three times, and then said, in
a voice that indicated a good deal of inward disturbance:

"I understand that you have been making rather free use of my name
of late."

"Indeed! in what way?" Lane was perfectly self-possessed.

"I am told that you went so far as to call me a hypocrite." The
voice of Rowley trembled.

"I said you were a Sunday Christian," replied Lane.

"What do you mean by that?" was peremptorily demanded.

"A man whose religion is a Sunday affair altogether. One who expects
to get to heaven by pious observances and church-goings on the
Sabbath, without being over-particular as to the morality of his
conduct through the week."

"Morality! do you pretend to say that I am an immoral man?" said
Rowley, with much heat.

"Don't get into a passion!" returned Lane, coolly. "That will not
help us at all in this grave matter."

Rowley quivered in every nerve; but the presence of his two brethren
admonished him that a Christian temper was very necessary to be
maintained on the occasion.

"Do you charge me with want of morality?" he said, with less visible
excitement.

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