Comparatively few people can be rich; but most have it in their power to
acquire, by industry and economy, sufficient to meet their personal
wants. They may even become the possessors of savings sufficient to
secure them against penury and poverty in their old age. It is not,
however, the want of opportunity, but the want of will, that stands in
the way of economy. Men may labour unceasingly with hand or head; but
they cannot abstain from spending too freely, and living too highly.
The majority prefer the enjoyment of pleasure to the practice of
self-denial. With the mass of men, the animal is paramount. They often
spend all that they earn. But it is not merely the working people who
are spendthrifts. We hear of men who for years have been earning and
spending hundreds a year, who suddenly die,--leaving their children
penniless. Everybody knows of such cases. At their death, the very
furniture of the house they have lived in belongs to others. It is sold
to pay their funeral expenses and debts which they have incurred during
their thriftless lifetime.
Money represents a multitude of objects without value, or without real
utility; but it also represents something much more precious,--and that
is independence. In this light it is of great moral importance.
As a guarantee of independence, the modest and plebeian quality of
economy is at once ennobled and raised to the rank of one of the most
meritorious of virtues.
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