ABOUT 
 
 OlON^lMi^ 
 
 'Dalks to Ghlldten 
 
 "Perry 'Wa^land Sinks 
 
Class _H-'^gr^5 
 
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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
ABOUT MONEY 
 
About Money 
 
 TALKS TO 
 CHILDREN 
 
 PERRY WAYLAND SINKS 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 'POPULAR AMUSEMENTS AND THE CHRISTIAN LIFE," ETC. 
 
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 Chicago New York Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London & Edinburgh 
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 IViAY 25 
 
 1903 
 
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 COPYRIGHT, 19 
 
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 BY FLEMING 
 
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 REVELL COMPANY | 
 
 November 
 
 1 
 
 TYPOGRAPHY BY 
 
 MABSH, AITKEN & CURTIS COMPANV 
 
 CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
I ^ 
 
 v^ 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Getting Money 13 
 
 Spending Money . . , . . .27 
 
 Sharp Bargains . . . . . 43 
 
 The Poor Poor 55 
 
 The Poor Rich 65 
 
 The Rich Poor ...... 77 
 
 The Rich Rich 95 
 
TO TWO WOMEN 
 
 WHO HAVE BLESSED THE AUTHOR'S LIFE 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS BOOKLET 
 
 TO THE 
 
 MOTHER NOW IN HEAVEN 
 
 TO THE 
 
 WIFE STILL BY MY SIDE 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 There Is no one thought that is earlier 
 or more continually brought to our notice 
 as we go through life — and increasingly at 
 the present time — than that of money. 
 Money is one of the earliest conceptions 
 impressed upon the mind of the child as it 
 is one of the most pertinacious of the after 
 years. Think as we may money is a great 
 ruling force of this age. Few persons will 
 allow, indeed, the appropriateness of the 
 term, "the almighty dollar," but all do 
 concede its modified form, "the mighty dol- 
 lar." "Never in the history of the world," 
 says a well-known living preacher, "were 
 the people grasping for golden baubles in 
 the market-place as they are to-day." 
 It has been said, "The heraldry of 
 America Is based on greenbacks." In view 
 of this widespread and, we think, growing 
 emphasis placed upon money, and of the 
 tremendous influence of money for good 
 and bad, for this world and the world to 
 
8 FOREWORD 
 
 come, it has seemed to us that the years 
 of childhood and youth are the specially 
 appropriate time when correct notions 
 should be instilled and right principles 
 inculcated. There are many reasons for 
 this conclusion. We mention only one — that 
 these are the character-forming years. In 
 accordance with this conception and with a 
 desire to win larger numbers of the children 
 to the sanctuary by giving to them their 
 "portion," we have brought to the boys and 
 girls of our own congregation the themes 
 which, in the pages of this little book, and 
 with as little change as was practicable, are 
 offered to the consideration of the young 
 scattered abroad, with our sincere and 
 prayerful greetings. 
 
 PERRY WAYLAND SINKS. 
 
 RiDGWAY, Pa. 
 
(Settino ^one^ 
 
GETTING MONEY 
 
 At the beginning of this series of talks in 
 which money is to be the principal thought 
 it is very fitting to ask, What is money? and 
 How came money into use? One answer to 
 the question, What is money? — and a correct 
 one — is. Money is "any material that by 
 agreement serves as a common medium of 
 exchange and measure of value in trade" 
 {Standard Dictionary). We may give as a 
 shorter and simpler definition, "Money is 
 that with which we buy things, or that with 
 which we pay our debts." What man has 
 used as money throughout human history 
 has depended upon when and where he has 
 lived. 
 
 How money came into use calls up a long 
 but interesting history. Whenever we use 
 the word money we think of bank notes, 
 gold, and silver, or the materials out of 
 which our money is made. But none of our 
 money, in the form it is used, has been in 
 
 13 
 
14 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 existence very long. Various kinds of met- 
 als were in use as money long before our 
 government was thought of or our country 
 had been discovered. In the former part of 
 the first book of the Bible an account is 
 given of Abraham buying a field from one 
 of the ancient HIttite people to use as a 
 burying-place for his dead, where he and his 
 family were afterward burled. The price 
 which he paid for this field, we are told, was 
 "four hundred shekels of silver, current 
 money with the merchant"; this amount 
 being weighed out to Ephron the HIttite in 
 payment for the field of Machpelah. This 
 was In Abraham's day, and he lived almost 
 four thousand years ago, or nearly as long 
 before Christ came as we are living since he 
 came. Silver was then in use as money. 
 "Shekel" was first used as a weight, but the 
 term came to be a name for an actual 
 coin. Later on gold came into use as 
 money. Gold and silver of the earlier Bible 
 times were used mostly in an uncoined con- 
 dition. Other things than precious metals 
 have been and still are used as money. 
 What is money differs In different coun- 
 
GETTING MONEY 15 
 
 tries and at different times. The ancient 
 Midianites carried their wealth with them in 
 the form of chains, bracelets, earrings and 
 tablets. The money used by the sons of 
 Jacob when they went to buy corn in Egypt 
 was probably in form of rings having each a 
 distinctive value. Caesar tells us that the 
 Gauls used for money gold and iron rings of 
 certain weight. In some parts of Africa a 
 cheap kind of cotton cloth is used as money; 
 one can buy anything the people have to 
 sell with it. In some of the islands of the 
 Pacific Ocean what is used as money is a 
 certain kind of shell or strings of these 
 shells. In a similar manner beads made of 
 the inner parts of various kinds of shells 
 and strung on threads or woven into pat- 
 terns were once used among the Indians of 
 this country as money. This was called 
 wampum. In Burmah, lead is still used as 
 money. The various metals — iron, copper, 
 nickel, silver and gold— separately or in 
 combination have long and widely been 
 used as money. Other things, too, than 
 metals or shells have been taken as a means 
 of exchange of values. The money of a 
 
1 6 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 country changes with its changing civiliza- 
 tion or with its political history. 
 
 As the nations are coming closer together 
 and are on better terms with one another it 
 is becoming easier all the while to exchange 
 the money of one country into that of 
 another or for the goods of another. Gold 
 and silver are now the almost universal 
 medium of exchange. We may think of 
 many reasons why they are adapted to 
 become the basis for world-wide use as 
 money. 
 
 But probably most of us, both old and 
 young, are much more interested about get- 
 ting and having money than we are about 
 how our money systems have come into 
 existence. We believe that there is no one 
 desire which is more general among all 
 people than is this, to get money. But how 
 shall money be gotten? Or what principles 
 or rules ought to guide and govern both old 
 and young in the desire and e*ffort to get 
 money? Money we all know does not grow 
 on trees or in the ground, yet what grows 
 on trees and in and from the ground may 
 bring money. We may get money, too, 
 
GETTING MONEY 17 
 
 from other things than those that grow. 
 Things that we may make and things 
 obtained on land and in sea may be the 
 source of money. What we may do also 
 brings money. So that money may be got- 
 ten in a great many ways, and in wrong as 
 well as in right ways. Many people think, 
 perhaps, that money gotten in wrong ways 
 will buy as much as though it were gotten in 
 right ways. Maybe it will, but I do not 
 think it will be so apt to be kept or used for 
 the best as will be the money gotten in right 
 ways. Do you? I can tell you how some 
 people gei money in what seems to me 
 wrong ways: 
 
 Some by keeping a saloon. By selling 
 drink, they get money in a way that robs chil- 
 dren of bread and clothes, makes men cruel, 
 quarrelsome and sometimes insane, and leads 
 them to commit all sorts of disorder and 
 crimes. This is one way of getting money 
 and getting it faster and easier and with less 
 intelligence than it can be gotten by selling 
 bread or anything else we need. This is 
 about the worst way in the world to get 
 money. And it makes no difference as to 
 
i8 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 the wrong of it whether it is legally or ille- 
 gally gotten. What is legally right may be 
 morally wrong. ''It is illegal," says one, "to 
 keep a gambling hell; it may be profitable 
 to do so, but it is pandering to a violent pas- 
 sion, and the employment is unmoral even 
 if it is conducted with the most scrupulous 
 regard to honesty." No one who wants to 
 do right will consent to get money in any 
 illegal or unmoral or immoral way. 
 
 Some get money by cheating. They sell, 
 it maybe, good, useful and necessary things, 
 but not in an honest way. They make the 
 quantity or the weight of what they sell a 
 little less than what it ought to be, v/ith the 
 intention to keep back a little of what they 
 get pay for. You know that there are six- 
 teen ounces in a pound of provisions or gro- 
 ceries — well, if a grocer gives only fifteen or 
 fifteen and a half ounces instead of sixteen 
 for a pound of what he sells he gets pay for 
 an ounce or for half an ounce more than he 
 gives out. If he does this intentionally he is 
 cheating. If the huckster sells you a basket 
 of apples and says that they are like those 
 nice ones on the top, all the way down to 
 
GETTING MONEY 19 
 
 the bottom, when they are not, but are 
 small and runty, he is cheating. He misrep- 
 resents for the sake of selling. Then some 
 cheat by saying what is not true about their 
 goods in order to keep a customer from 
 going elsewhere. Some storekeepers buy a 
 worthless article, or one not so good as 
 some other merchants have for sale, and 
 say, it is "just the same," or "just as good," 
 when they know it is not; that is cheating 
 and cheating is nearly as bad as stealing. 
 This is a wrong way to get money. 
 
 Some get money by betting and gam- 
 bling. These means of getting money are 
 on the increase in our country, and we 
 ought to be looking up the cause for this 
 increase. It may be that the start of bet- 
 ting and gambling is to be found in or near 
 the homes of good people. Playing mar- 
 bles "for keeps," and with the sanction or 
 knowledge of parents, may be the begin- 
 ning place for betting and gambling for 
 larger "stakes" later on. Agricultural fairs 
 are good institutions, or used to be, but 
 when they give opportunity for all sorts of 
 gaming and betting devices good people will 
 
20 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 have nothing more to do with them. I like 
 to see a nice horse, and I like to see him go, 
 and I do not believe there is any advantage, 
 unless you want to look at the scenery, in 
 taking ten minutes to go a mile when you 
 might go it in three. But when a man says, 
 "This horse of mine can go faster than your 
 horse can, and I'll bet you a hundred dollars 
 that he can," and the man to whom he 
 speaks "takes him up," as they say, they 
 both are betting on a horse, and are in 
 a fair way to gambling. Charles Kingsley, 
 the novelist, once wrote to his son concern- 
 ing the English races, into which the son 
 was venturing: "There is a matter which 
 gave me much uneasiness when you men- 
 tioned it. You said you had put into some 
 lottery for the Derby, and had hedged to 
 make it safe. Now all that is bad, bad, 
 nothing but bad. Of all habits it grows 
 most on eager minds. Success and loss 
 alike make it grow," To get money in 
 either of these ways is wrong, for one or the 
 other gets nothing for the money he gives. 
 Gambling throughout is the attempt to 
 acquire something for nothing by a lucky 
 
GETTING MONEY 21 
 
 venture or, more often, by trickery or decep- 
 tion. 
 
 Speculation Is another channel in which 
 fortunes are won. How far speculation is 
 honorable and right is a question upon 
 which there are various opinions. Certain 
 it is, as The Outlook has recently observed, 
 speculation is "a temptation that more and 
 more constantly, with the development of 
 our exchanges, confronts men of the very 
 finest type of business life." Mr. Carnegie, 
 in his book The Empire of Business, regards 
 speculation as the second of three supreme 
 perils to business success, and asserts: 
 "There is scarcely an instance of a man who 
 has made a fortune by speculation and kept 
 it. Gamesters die poor, and there is cer- 
 tainly not an instance of a speculator who 
 has lived a life creditable to himself or 
 advantageous to the community." This is 
 a sweeping arraignment but is entitled to 
 thoughtful consideration by the young. 
 
 Some by stealing. The young man knows 
 there is money in the cash drawer, watches 
 his chance and takes it — maybe a little at a 
 time. The thief knows that your parents 
 
22 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 are away from home, he breaks into the 
 house and takes the silverware and jewelry 
 and sells what he gets to somebody who 
 doesn't ask any questions. Thus these get 
 money by stealing. Those who get money 
 in this way are almost certain, sooner or 
 later, to come to some bad end. 
 
 And some get money by oppressing the 
 poor and in other and unjust ways. There 
 are those who never stop to ask what is right, 
 or fair, or just, whose whole aim is to get 
 money, no matter how. Their motto seems 
 to be, "Get money; get it honestly if you 
 can, but get it." The Golden Rule has 
 been modified too frequently to read, "Do 
 unto others as you have the power to 
 do." These, and other channels are 
 wrong ways of getting money. No good 
 person, no one who regards his fellow men, 
 will want to get money by any of these 
 ways. And it does not save such from 
 blame that they do good with the money 
 gotten wrongfully. 
 
 There is one other way to get money of 
 which we would speak; it is to get it hon- 
 estly, by fair and honorable means, by giv- 
 
GETTING MONEY 23 
 
 ing a just exchange for it whether it be in 
 service of any sort or in goods of any kind. 
 Generally this is the surest way to get 
 money, for people soon come to know who 
 are honest and who are not. In the long 
 run it does not pay to get money dishon- 
 estly or unjustly. You may not get money 
 so fast, nor so much of it, by getting it only 
 in right ways, but you will be more apt to 
 keep it, and you will enjoy it more when 
 you do get it. 
 
 There are many separate channels in the 
 right way of getting money. Everything 
 we eat, wear, use and enjoy — clothes, books, 
 pictures, tools, things about the home, store 
 and street, and all the varied lines of serv- 
 ice, occupations, pursuits and professions — ■ 
 are honest channels of getting money to 
 some one, or to all. There is a chance for 
 every person who is able to work to get 
 money honestly, and no one needs to do the 
 mean and bad things that men — and women, 
 too, sometimes — resort to in order that they 
 may get money. 
 
 The ends or purposes for which people 
 strive to get money are many and diverse. 
 
24 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 These are expressed In the mottoes of 
 money-seekers. The vain man's motto is, 
 "Get money and wear it"; the generous 
 man's, "Get money and share it" ; the miser's, 
 "Get money and hoard it"; the profli- 
 gate's, "Get money and spend it"; the 
 broker's, "Get money and lend it"; the 
 gambler's, "Get money and lose it"; the 
 wise man's, "Get money and use it." Imi- 
 tate the wise man's example, and get all the 
 money you can — ever and only honestly — 
 and then use it in a wise and prudent way. 
 
Spenbing UDonev 
 
SPENDING MONEY 
 
 It Is about as difficult a thing to do, and 
 requires fully as much wisdom and judg- 
 ment to spend money well as it does to get 
 money — sometimes it requires even more. 
 No doubt it is true, as somebody has said, 
 that the great art of getting rich lies more 
 in knowing how to spend money judiciously 
 than in how to save it carefully. The 
 estimate of one who has given away millions 
 is that it is "more difficult to conscientiously 
 distribute wealth than to acquire it." And 
 the way one spends his money is far more 
 an indication of his character than is how 
 he gets or saves his money. 
 
 If I were to ask. What is money for? I 
 would not be at all surprised if some one 
 were to ansv/er, "To spend." And this 
 answer would not be so far wrong either, 
 for money is to spend. 
 
 Certainly money is not to eat. To be sure 
 you can get what is good to eat with money, 
 
 but money is not a food. The story is told 
 
 27 
 
28 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 of an Arab who was very hungry, almost 
 starved, who found a bag which he thought 
 had food in it, but which, when he opened it, 
 he found out to his great regret had noth- 
 ing in it but money, and he threw it down 
 in disgust. You have heard the fable of 
 Midas. He asked his god, as the fable has 
 it, that whatever he might touch should be 
 changed into gold. His prayer was granted. 
 He first plucked a twig from an oak tree; it 
 became gold in his hand. He took up a 
 stone; it changed to gold. He picked an 
 apple from a tree; it became a golden 
 apple. When he got home he ordered his 
 servants to set a splendid dinner on the 
 table. He then found, to his horror, that 
 when he touched bread it hardened in his 
 hand to gold, and when he put it to his 
 mouth he could not bite it. He took a 
 glass of wine, but it flowed down his throat 
 like melted gold. He was filled with a fear 
 of starvation, and went to his god with all 
 haste and asked him to take back his gift. 
 Over in China, as we have learned lately, 
 when a prominent man is condemned, and 
 has to be executed, he sometimes kills him- 
 
SPENDING MONEY 29 
 
 self by eating gold leaf. I suppose the gold 
 leaf becomes poison, or else it contains 
 poison. No kind of money would be good 
 food. 
 
 Money is not to keep. While one ought 
 not to be too anxious to spend the money 
 he gets, so anxious as to be a spendthrift, 
 and one should strive to always have some 
 money "by" him for the special needs that 
 are always liable to come, yet he ought 
 never to have a desire to keep all he gets. 
 That is miserly. A miser may be a success 
 as a miser, but not as a man. If everybody 
 were to lock up their money, or hide it where 
 no one could find it, and thus keep it safely, 
 it would not do anybody a bit of good^ I 
 was talking with a man lately who was up in 
 Alaska last summer, and who was telling of 
 the large quantity of gold there is in that 
 far-away part of our country; but all that 
 gold which has been hidden away through 
 the centuries, millions of dollars' worth, 
 "kept," has never done anybody a bit of 
 good, and cannot till it is found and begins 
 to be spent. In one of the parables which 
 Jesus spoke He specially warned against 
 
30 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 hiding away and simply keeping safely the 
 money we may get. If we do that we are 
 in danger of ourselves losing what we think 
 we will surely keep, for no matter how 
 much one may get he must leave it all 
 behind when he goes out of this world. I 
 read only a little while ago of a man who 
 was missed from his place of busirress, and 
 when he was sought by his neighbors he 
 was found dead in his house, where he lived 
 all alone, while about his bed were four iron 
 boxes, which, when they were opened, were 
 found to contain gold, silver, paper money 
 and government bonds, amounting to thou- 
 sands of dollars, which he had indeed kept 
 securely, but which he had to leave behind. 
 Money is not to love. It is a sad, sad 
 thing for any man to come to love money 
 more than he loves his wife, his children, 
 his parents, or his friends — more than he 
 loves truth and right. One of Jesus' 
 apostles said, "The love of money" — not 
 money itself but — "the love of money is the 
 root of all evil"; and that is only another 
 way of saying that out of a love of money 
 grows a great many bad things. Out of the 
 
SPENDING MONEY 31 
 
 love of money as a seed or root grows covet- 
 ousness, thefts, extortions of the poor, vil- 
 lainies and most of the vice and crime that 
 spread over the earth as clouds trail across 
 the sky. It is not the possession but the 
 misuse of money against which the Bible 
 lifts up its warning. 
 
 Money, then, is not to eat, nor to keep, 
 nor to love, but to spend — to give in 
 exchange for something else that will do 
 ourselves or somebody good. Benjamin 
 Franklin said a long time ago, "The use of 
 money is all the advantage there is in hav- 
 ing money." And said Mr. Carnegie 
 recently, "The best of wealth is not what it 
 does for the owner, but what it enables him. 
 to do for others." And there are many ways 
 in which money spent judiciously will do 
 good. One's money may work for him in 
 ways and places where he himself can never 
 go nor work. You yourself may not be able 
 to go to the heathen, but the money you 
 may get can send or help to send somebody 
 else to tell those who are in darkness of 
 Jesus and His love. Money may send will- 
 ing feet up the garret stairs, down into 
 
32 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 gloomy basements, over mountains and 
 across seas on errands that the dear Lord 
 Himself would gladly take but which He 
 cannot except as money sends. 
 
 Yes, money is to spend. And our money 
 is in such forms and amounts that it can 
 easily be spent. Our money is of different 
 kinds — gold, silver, nickel, copper and bills 
 — and is of so different values — from one 
 cent up to twenty dollars in coin, and from 
 one dollar up to ten thousand dollars in 
 bank notes — that it can easily be spent. 
 There are places where, if we were strangers, 
 we could not spend money at all, could not 
 even buy a dinner no matter how much we 
 wanted it, if all the money we had was a 
 twenty dollar gold piece. You know that 
 when a five or ten dollar bill is "broken," as 
 people say, how quickly and easily it goes. 
 Most too easily we think sometimes when 
 there are so many places and ways to 
 spend it. 
 
 But how shall we spend the money we 
 get? Here is a good place for some 
 "don'ts:" Don't spend money before you 
 get it. Don't do this. To do this is almost 
 
SPENDING MONEY 33 
 
 always a mistake. No one will ever, except 
 for the very best reasons, go in debt. It is 
 a great deal easier to keep from getting in 
 debt than it is to get out of debt after one is 
 in, as many and many a person can testify. 
 One who is in debt is always at a disadvan- 
 tage as compared with the one who is not. 
 He who gets his money before he spends it 
 has the advantage every time, and in many 
 ways. And it is no wrong advantage either. 
 Don't spend money uselessly. Don't 
 waste or squander it upon what you do not 
 need in any way. Don't think that you 
 must have every nice thing you see for your 
 own. Perhaps it is better that some of us 
 cannot have all the nice things we would like 
 to have. Perhaps if we did have many of 
 the things we want but cannot have we would 
 not find the delight in them we thought we 
 should. Some rich parents think it is not 
 the best thing to leave a fortune to their 
 children, because of the danger that what 
 "came easy" would "go easy," which is often 
 the case, and because money obtained with- 
 out one's own effort is not apt to be valued 
 highly. We have known many such cases. 
 
34 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 Mr. Carnegie says, "I would almost as soon 
 leave a young man a curse as to burden 
 him with the almighty dollar." There 
 are better things for parents to leave 
 their children than a large sum of money, 
 which, sad to say, their children often quar- 
 rel over. One thing, we think, much better 
 than money is the ability to earn money by 
 honest work. Another is a good education. 
 A great man once told a youth to empty his 
 purse into his head if he wished to keep his 
 money safely; he meant that a good educa- 
 tion would be the best investment he could 
 make of his money. Good habits, because 
 they are elements of a good character, are 
 better than money. These are the things 
 that will stay by one when fortune is all 
 gone. 
 
 And we ought to guard against that 
 extravagance in spending money which 
 ministers to sinful pride and embitters the 
 poor against the rich. There is great wis- 
 dom, we think, in the statement of Dr. Cun- 
 ningham, when he says: "There is ample 
 reason for the indignation which is felt in 
 regard to luxurious expenditures of the 
 
SPENDING MONEY 35 
 
 rich. When ball decorations involve an 
 expenditure of / 1,000 ($5,000) on flowers 
 there is an outlay which is wrong; not 
 because it is unproductive consumption, but 
 because it is a wrong kind of unproductive 
 consumption, and it is an idle display. It is 
 extravagance like this that is to blame for 
 setting class against class; jealousy itself 
 finds little to fasten on in the case of a 
 wealthy man who uses his wealth wisely and 
 well, but is aroused by evidences of extrav- 
 agance and dissipation" [The Use and Abuse 
 of Money, pp. 215, 216). 
 
 Don't spend money for hurtful things. 
 Don't buy at any price what will injure you 
 in body, in mind, or in soul. Whoever does 
 this makes a bad bargain. A long time ago 
 God asked His people, "Wherefore do ye 
 spend money for that which is not bread?" 
 I think He meant by "bread" anything use- 
 ful and needful, and that He intended by 
 this question to reprove the people because 
 they gave their money for things neither use- 
 ful nor needful but hurtful instead. Above 
 all things don't do this. Boys, if you resolve 
 never to spend money for hurtful things, 
 
36 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 and stick to it, you will never give money 
 for vile literature, for tobacco, or for 
 intoxicating drinks, and many other like 
 hurtful things, because they are hurtful to 
 body, mind, or soul, one or all. And if you 
 do not spend money for hurtful things you 
 will have all the more money to spend for 
 useful and helpful things. A young fop of a 
 fellow who pretended to have a great liking 
 for books was once shown into the pres- 
 ence of Elihu Burritt in his library, and as 
 he came in he continued to puff away at a 
 choice cigar, whereupon the "learned black- 
 smith" remarked that a large part of his 
 library represented money that might have 
 been spent on tobacco. So, too, many 
 another man with a small income has been 
 able to get together a valuable library and 
 other ennobling influences by the money 
 that might have been spent in harmful ways 
 or for hurtful things. One asks, "What 
 clerk or workingman that spends twenty 
 cents a day for cigars dreams that by this 
 expenditure, with the accumulated interest, 
 he will, in fifty years, have smoked away 
 twenty thousand dollars?" A lawyer once 
 
SPENDING MONEY 37 
 
 told me that his bill for cigars was about 
 twenty dollars a month, and said he thought 
 that perhaps it would be better — better for 
 him personally, and a better use of that 
 amount of money — to put it into the church. 
 I told him I thought so, too. Many a man 
 could easily send his son or daughter to col- 
 lege on what he spends for tobacco. Poor 
 Richard was not far wrong when he said, 
 "What maintains one vice would bring up 
 two children." 
 
 But spend money, so far as you have it or 
 may have it to spend, for what will be of 
 use to you in some way — body, mind or soul 
 — for what will add to your true enjoyment, 
 or for what will do others good in some 
 way, and for what will make the world 
 brighter, better and happier. Let the same 
 wisdom and judgment be used in spending 
 as is required in getting money. The way a 
 man spends his money is one of the surest 
 tests of his character; not an infallible test, 
 but a good test. "Any use of wealth," says 
 one, "that facilitates the development of any 
 kind of skill or refinement of taste has much 
 to be said for it; at all events it is not wasted 
 
38 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 if it promotes the cultivation of the human 
 faculties, intellectual or artistic" {The Useaitd 
 Abuse of Money, p. 214). One good chan- 
 nel for spending money is to give it to wor- 
 thy causes and to beneficent institutions, 
 such as schools, hospitals, homes for the 
 dependent, missions, libraries, churches. 
 Money thus given is saved and helps for- 
 ward the cause of truth and right. Money 
 thus spent will be "treasures laid up in 
 heaven." On a monument in an old ceme- 
 tery there is this epitaph: "Here lies E 
 
 who transported a large fortune to heaven 
 by deeds of kindness and acts of charity, 
 and has now gone thither to enjoy it." 
 
 Not long ago I read on the inside of a 
 street-car the following statement and 
 injunctions: 
 
 Two ways to do business — 
 
 Get all you can; 
 
 Give all you can. 
 
 These injunctions reminded me of John 
 Wesley's famous and completer rules con- 
 cerning money: "Get all you can without 
 hurting your soul, your body, or your neigh- 
 bor. Save all you can, cutting off every 
 
SPENDING MONEY 39 
 
 needless expense. Give all you can." To 
 give money is often a good way — sometimes 
 the best way — to spend it. The great phi- 
 losopher, Bacon, once observed that a large 
 fortune is of no solid use to the owner, 
 except to increase his means of giving. 
 Our own philosopher, Franklin, said, "The 
 use of money is all the advantage there is in 
 having money." Mr. Andrew Carnegie goes 
 still further and says, when speaking of 
 "the gospel of wealth": "It predicts that 
 the day is at hand when he who dies pos- 
 sessed of enormous sums, which were his 
 and free to administer during his life, will 
 die disgraced, and holds that the aim of the 
 millionaire should be to die poor. It like- 
 wise pleads for modesty of private expendi- 
 ture." 
 
Sharp Bargafns 
 
SHARP BARGAINS 
 
 There is a story of two brothers told In 
 the first book of the Bible which abounds 
 in lessons and warnings to every age. It is 
 the story of Jacob and Esau who were twin 
 brothers — the sons of Isaac and Rebekah. 
 One of these sons, Esau, says of the other, 
 "Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath 
 supplanted me these two times: he took 
 away my birthright; and, behold, now he 
 hath taken away my blessing." As we thus 
 see this young man Jacob with the eyes of 
 Esau we get a full view of what would now 
 be called a "sharper." Indeed, the name 
 "Jacob" means about that — ^"supplanter." 
 Jacob is famous among all Bible characters, 
 and from his early life, for his grasping dis- 
 position and for getting the advantage over 
 others, or for striving to do so. It was only 
 in his later life that he overcame this natu- 
 ral bent, and then not in his own strength, 
 but by help from above. Some doubt if 
 this grasping disposition were Indeed over- 
 
 43 
 
44 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 come even in Jacob's later life, though It 
 was then that his name was changed to 
 "Israel," which means "prince with God." 
 But when he was a young man, and for 
 long after, he was "Jacob" — "supplanter." 
 
 It was almost more disgrace to Jacob that 
 he defrauded and cheated his own brother, 
 and a twin brother at that. Twins are 
 commonly very much attached to one 
 another. They are usually much alike 
 when they are of the same sex; often they 
 are so much alike that one could easily pass 
 for the other. Twins are generally very 
 similar In disposition, tastes, sympathies and 
 size, as well as In looks. Sometimes It Is 
 almost a case of one mind with two bodies. 
 But this was not the case with Jacob and 
 Esau; they were very different; almost 
 exact opposites. They had very little In 
 common. They did not look alike and their 
 tastes were different. The one liked to 
 hunt; the other to stay about the tent. 
 "Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the 
 field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling 
 in tents." Esau was the favorite of the 
 father; Jacob the favorite of the mother. 
 
SHARP BARGAINS 45 
 
 Their dispositions and characters were 
 different: the one was free-hearted, gener- 
 ous, happy-go-lucky and unsuspecting— that 
 was Esau; the other was shrewd, selfish, far- 
 seeing, unscrupulous — that was Jacob. 
 Jacob knew when and how to "invest" for 
 his own advantage; and he had no scruples 
 against practicing his sharpness on his own 
 twin brother — it did not matter to him how 
 much he wronged his brother. 
 
 Jacob thus is an example of a man who 
 made, and who planned to make, a sharp 
 bargain whenever he had the chance. In 
 this Bible story Esau accuses Jacob to his 
 father of having twice supplanted him, or 
 of having defrauded and cheated him, twice; 
 when and how? 
 
 The first time was when Esau had been 
 away on a long hunting trip, and had not 
 found enough game to live on, and was 
 ready to die of hunger. Jacob saw his con- 
 dition, and. Instead of giving him something 
 to eat, he took advantage of his brother's 
 weakness to cheat him out of his only real 
 possession — his birthright. The birthright 
 which Jacob got from his brother Esau was 
 
46 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 that special favor in a Hebrew family, which 
 gave to the firstborn son particular rights 
 and the first place at the death of the 
 father. This belonged to Esau, but as he 
 expected to die, and would have died if he 
 had not gotten food, he agreed to sell his 
 birthright to his brother. Jacob was sharp 
 enough to know that most people when 
 they think death is near are not apt to be 
 much concerned about the things of this 
 life, whether valuable or not. Jacob would 
 not give his brother the food he craved until 
 he had made sure of the birthright. All 
 that Esau got for his birthright was "bread 
 and pottage of lentiles," or dry bread and 
 greens. This was the first sharp bargain 
 Jacob made with Esau. 
 
 The other sharp bargain he made with 
 his twin brother was when Isaac, their 
 father, was dying, as he believed. Isaac, 
 who knew that Jacob had cheated Esau out 
 of his birthright, wanted to make up some- 
 what for that injustice toward his favorite 
 son by giving him his special blessing. 
 Jacob overheard this plan, and with the help 
 of his mother took advantage of the father's 
 
SHARP BARGAINS 47 
 
 falling powers and not only deceived him 
 but cheated Esau of what the father 
 intended for him. This was the second 
 time Jacob supplanted Esau. Jacob was 
 shrewd, indeed, but mean and base to wrong 
 his brother and to pain and grieve his aged 
 father in his dying hour. I can hardly think 
 of anything meaner than this second sharp 
 bargain of Jacob. Can you? 
 
 Let us now ask what Jacob's sharp 
 bargains brought to him. First of all 
 they brought him a great deal of trouble, 
 as they have brought trouble to many a 
 man since. His defrauding or supplanting 
 his brother twice awakens Esau's desire for 
 revenge; he hates his brother and plans to 
 kill him. Jacob flees and becomes a wan- 
 derer, never again to enter that home. 
 Jacob is sorely punished; and so, too, is his 
 mother, who aided him in defrauding Esau 
 of the fathers blessing, for the last look 
 Rebekah had of her favorite son was when 
 she let him out at the back door of their 
 tent, and urged him to flee for his life to the 
 land of Haran. 
 
 Then, too, a person who always plans to 
 
48 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 make sharp bargains will be very apt to 
 have sharp bargains practiced upon him. 
 If a person undertakes to get through this 
 world on his great sharpness he will almost 
 always find out, sooner or later, that there 
 are other people as sharp or a little 
 sharper than he is. I suppose that persons 
 who imagine they are shrewd often get 
 worsted in their very shrewdness. This was 
 surely the case with Jacob. Jacob met his 
 match, and more than his match, in his 
 uncle Laban. Jacob loved the younger of 
 Laban's two daughters, Rachel, and made 
 an agreement with Laban, after the custom 
 of that time, to labor for his uncle during a 
 period of seven years in order to get 
 Rachel for his wife. That was a long time 
 to labor and wait, but it soon passed by, as 
 it seemed to Jacob. The seven years 
 "seemed unto him but a few days, for the 
 love he had to" Rachel. But judge of 
 Jacob's surprise at the end of the seven 
 years to be informed by the father that he 
 could not have Rachel, whom he loved, 
 but must take her older sister, and that if he 
 still wanted Rachel he must labor and wait 
 
SHARP BARGAINS 49 
 
 another seven years. When Jacob remon- 
 strated he was reminded by Laban that such 
 was the rule of the trade in that country. 
 Laban was sharp enough not to inform 
 Jacob of this rule, or custom, until he had 
 first gotten seven years of labor from him. 
 More than this, Jacob suffered from the 
 upbraidings of an accusing conscience. 
 He lived with his troubling conscience for 
 twenty years. If the bargain one makes 
 sends him out to live with a reproving 
 conscience it is not so "sharp" after 
 all. Twenty years or more after Jacob 
 defrauded Esau of the father's bless- 
 ing these twin brothers met again. Jacob 
 dreaded to see the face of his brother, 
 because he remembered how he had 
 wronged him — his conscience made him a 
 coward. Jacob sent his brother a great gift 
 of flocks and herds to turn aside Esau's 
 anger; and then how he did pray that he 
 might not suffer harm at the hands of his 
 brother. He was conscience-smitten for his 
 own wrong deeds. But Esau, notwithstand- 
 ing the wrongs he had suffered, received 
 Jacob as a brother beloved. "And ran to 
 
50 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 meet him, and embraced him, and fell on 
 his neck, and kissed him: and they wept." 
 
 We do not wish to be understood as 
 speaking against bargaining or business 
 enterprise, but as warning against a certain 
 kind of bargaining or enterprise. We need 
 to distinguish between business transac- 
 tions that are only far-seeing and those 
 that are unscrupulous. The enterpris- 
 ing spirit which seeks money in honor- 
 able and right ways for the good it 
 will bring and do is most commendable. 
 The enterprising spirit that gets money, or 
 seeks to get money, regardless of the means 
 employed, is reprehensible. Says a living 
 American preacher, "We are animals when 
 we live only to get." Emerson said,"Industry 
 is still in its 'quadruped ' state." Industry 
 seems to be growing more and more quad- 
 rupedal continually. And it is coming more 
 and more to resemble, not the "quad- 
 ruped" that chews the cud, but the 
 "quadruped " that roots. We accept the 
 estimate of Ian MacLaren: "Money-making 
 has two sides: one is very ignoble, where an 
 immortal being toils and scrapes and grasps 
 
SHARP BARGAINS 51 
 
 and hoards, simply that he may possess; 
 one is entirely noble, where one strives that 
 he may provide. What heroism may be 
 hidden behind buying and selling, bargain- 
 ing and speculating! Where a weary, 
 anxious man is ever thinking of a woman 
 who must not know want, of boys who must 
 have their chance in life, one forgives him 
 his carefulness" (The Potter s Wheel, p. 46). 
 
 Jacob lived to see that all the "sharp bar- 
 gains" which men may make, wherein any- 
 body is intentionally defrauded, and wherein 
 the conscience accuses of wrong, are "bad 
 bargains." Jacob, we are told, became the 
 father of the faithful, but it was not through 
 the law of primogeniture nor from his sharp- 
 ness, but because he had a new heart given 
 him and a new name in token. The new 
 heart which Jacob received in answer to his 
 wrestling prayer was witness of the change 
 which had taken place in his character, by 
 which the "supplanter" was transformed into 
 "a prince of God," and the new name "Israel" 
 was the evidence that the change in his life 
 was from above, and not from the earth. It 
 was when his foothold upon earth was "sup- 
 
52 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 planted" and he held fast his unknown and 
 heavenly wrestler that the victory was ob- 
 tained. So it is possible for even a "sharp- 
 er," a stock speculator, or a gambler to be 
 transformed into a child of God, but it will 
 come, and can come, only from outside and 
 above himself. 
 
^be poov poor 
 
THE POOR POOR 
 
 There are not many people who really 
 enjoy being poor; not many who prefer to 
 be poor. The people who talk of the 
 advantages of poverty are mostly those who 
 are no longer poor if they ever were poor. 
 No doubt there are advantages in being 
 poor, but it is a difficult thing to get poor 
 people to see these advantages, or rich 
 people to accept them, as they easily could. 
 This is not to say that one cannot be poor 
 and at the same time be respectable, or be 
 good, or enjoy living. We have heard 
 people say that they "enjoyed poor health"; 
 they did not mean just that, but that they 
 endured poor health with fortitude. So 
 some people endure poverty with good 
 grace. 
 
 I think it is true also that the little which 
 some people have gives them more comfort 
 and pleasure than what some other people 
 get from their great possessions. Whether 
 a thing is little or much depends largely 
 
 55 
 
56 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 upon whose eyes look at It. Mr. Carnegie 
 says of the first week's wages he ever 
 earned: "Many millions of dollars have 
 since passed through my hands, but the 
 genuine satisfaction I had from that one 
 dollar and twenty cents outweighs any sub- 
 sequent pleasure in money-getting." 
 
 No doubt poverty has its advantages, but 
 they are forced, not chosen, as few people 
 choose to be poor rather than to be rich. 
 I do remember having heard of a good 
 Methodist minister who found great com- 
 fort in a hymn, something like this: 
 
 "No foot of land do I possess 
 In all this dreary wilderness." 
 
 A rich man is said to have taken pity on 
 him, and to have given him a farm, and 
 then he could not sing his favorite hymn 
 any longer. But he would rather have his 
 song than to own the farm, so he brought 
 back the deed and gave up the farm. But 
 this was a good while ago. And perhaps 
 the farm wasn't worth a real good song. 
 Some songs are worth more than some 
 farms. Maybe the farm wasn't improved, 
 
THE POOR POOR 57 
 
 or was in an unhealthy locality, for there 
 are few persons in our times who would 
 actually refuse a good farm well located. 
 
 And so we say there are few persons, if 
 any, who would rather be poor. For, to be 
 poor brings a great many inconveniences 
 and deprives of a great many advantages 
 that riches can give. One of our living 
 humorists has said in sober, somber truth: 
 "There have been a good many funny 
 things said and written about hardupish- 
 ness, but the reality is not funny for all that. 
 It is not funny to have to haggle over pen- 
 nies. It isn't funny to be thought mean and 
 stingy. It isn't funny to be shabby, and to 
 be ashamed of your address. No, there is 
 nothing at all fanny in poverty — to the 
 poor. It is hell upon earth to a sensitive 
 man; and many a brave gentleman, who 
 would have faced the labors of Hercules, has 
 had. his heart broken by its petty miseries." 
 Poverty not only embitters many lives and 
 deprives of many advantages, that the rich 
 enjoy, but also hinders from doing a great 
 deal of good that one might do if he had 
 the money to use. There are many, many 
 
58 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 ways in which a person who has money can 
 do g-ood where one without money cannot. 
 The man without money has the added 
 misery of seeing open doors that he cannot 
 enter. The same is true of some churches 
 in their work. 
 
 It is not only a great inconvenience to be 
 poor, it is often far worse, even a curse; not 
 a curse sent by the Lord, but a curse 
 brought upon oneself, or that comes through 
 misfortune. But, boys, don't you know that 
 there is something a great deal worse than 
 to be poor? "What is it?" do you ask. 
 Why, it is to be mean and thoroughly bad 
 in thought and speech and act. That is a 
 great deal worse — a thousand times worse — 
 than being poor. I am afraid many people 
 do not think so. 
 
 And, girls, don't you know that there is 
 something a great deal worse than being 
 bad, bad in thought and word and deed? 
 "What is it?" you may ask. Why, it is to be 
 bad and poor — bad and poor. To be bad 
 and poor is a great deal worse than to be 
 simply bad, or simply poor. To be bad and 
 poor is to be doubly poor; and to be doubly 
 
THE POOR POOR 59 
 
 poor Is far worse than to be merely poor. 
 "Every drunken vagabond or lazy idler sup- 
 ported by alms bestowed by wealthy people 
 is a source of moral infection to a neighbor- 
 hood" [The Gospel of Wealth, p. 70). You 
 all can see now whom we mean by the term 
 "the poor poor"; they are the doubly poor, 
 the bad poor, or, as some one has called 
 them, "the devil's poor." 
 
 The Bible gives us a definition of the poor 
 poor. It says of them, they are the "foolish" ; 
 they "know not the way of the Lord, 
 nor the judgment of their God" (and they 
 do not want to know); "they swear falsely; 
 . . . They have refused to receive cor- 
 rection: they have made their faces harder 
 than a rock" ("brazen faced," we would say); 
 "they have refused to return." Is not this a 
 plain and true description of a thoroughly 
 bad person, one who has become hardened 
 by continued wrong-doing. The prophet 
 says, "Surely these are poor," and I say 
 these are the poor poor, the doubly poor, or 
 the devil's poor. Certainly they are not the 
 Lord's poor. 
 
 How came they to be the poor poor? 
 
6o ABOUT MONEY 
 
 This is a question not easy to answer. In 
 many cases the answer is known only to 
 God. 
 
 With some it may be owing to the treat- 
 ment they have received from their fellow 
 beings, or from the rich. It is a sad thing 
 that some who were once the Lord's poor 
 have become the devil's poor, and they say 
 sometimes that the treatment they got from 
 the rich made them so. There are thou- 
 sands of men who attribute their present 
 unfortunate condition to the alleged fact 
 that they have not had a fair chance in the 
 struggle for existence and because the big 
 accumulations of money in the hands of a 
 few have dammed up the stream of oppor- 
 tunity. This may be said only in excuse for 
 their condition, not in justification of it. 
 
 Often persons have become the poor poor 
 because they have wasted their means, they 
 have been extravagant when they should 
 have been economical and frugal; in such 
 cases the fault cannot be laid on somebody 
 else. Some live beyond their income, want- 
 ing to keep up with their neighbor who may 
 have five times their wages, and thus they 
 
THE POOR POOR 6i 
 
 are tempted to do bad things, to become 
 dishonest, to lie, cheat and steal, and so 
 from being poor they come to be the poor 
 poor. 
 
 Others become such because of misfor- 
 tunes or calamities which throw them into 
 the midst of conditions and associations 
 where they can hardly help becoming the 
 poor poor. It is no wonder that children 
 brought up in certain surroundings go to the 
 bad. They don't have far to go and have 
 many helps in going. 
 
 One of the greatest or the greatest one 
 cause for this double poverty is intemper- 
 ance. Drink makes many a man the poor- 
 est of the poor. Drink is apt to make one 
 poor in purse. I have heard of a person 
 who drank up a good farm, a yoke of oxen, 
 a flock of sheep, the household furniture, 
 his good clothes; then he was poor indeed, 
 and thus by drink became poor in character 
 also, and then he was doubly poor. Can 
 anyone be poorer than the poor drunkard? 
 He is the devil's own poor. 
 
 But, boys and girls, Jesus came to save 
 even the poor poor, the doubly poor, the 
 
62 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 poorest of the poor. He became poor him- 
 self — not doubly poor, but poor — to do so; 
 and no one, I think, is so doubly poor as to 
 be beyond His reach. He has saved many 
 of those who were in direst poverty and in 
 deepest sin. 
 
 There was the case of Jerry McAuley, 
 who said of himself: "I was a river thief, 
 and a drunkard, and a low-lived fellow. But 
 Jesus, in answer to prayer, changed me in 
 character from the crown of my head to the 
 soles of my feet." Much the same is the 
 testimony left by Bendigo, the prize fighter: 
 "I had fought twenty-four regular battles. 
 I was in prison for my crimes, and then it 
 was that I was made a new man by the 
 power of the Lord Jesus, and have remained 
 so ever since." Jesus is able to save to the 
 uttermost, and none have gone so far into 
 the double poverty of want and shame as to 
 be beyond His grace and power to help and 
 save. 
 
Zhc poor IRicb 
 
THE POOR RICH 
 
 In the very last book of the Bible we are 
 told about some people who think that 
 money, or lands, or stocks, or merchandise, 
 which they call their own, make them rich. 
 Probably you think that a man who has a 
 hundred thousand dollars is a rich man; he 
 may be, and he may not be. I have heard 
 of people who had a great deal of money, 
 and who, nevertheless, died in great want — 
 in dire want of more money. No person is 
 rich in a high and true sense who is bad. 
 Jesus said upon one occasion (and the para- 
 ble of the rich man who built larger barns 
 to store up the fruits of his fields was based 
 upon it), "A man's life consisteth not in the 
 abundance of the things which he possess- 
 eth." He may say, as the rich man of 
 this parable said to his soul, "Soul, thou 
 hast much goods laid up for many years"; 
 or as a man said in the last book of the 
 Bible, "I am rich, and have need of noth- 
 ing," and at the same time be "miserable 
 
 65 
 
66 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 and poor," as relates to the truest riches — 
 the riches that rust cannot corrode, thieves 
 cannot steal, or the soul cannot be parted 
 from. These are the poor rich. 
 
 I know a good man who lives in a large 
 eastern city, who, for fifty years or more, 
 has been connected with an institution that 
 cares for the children of the poor and desti- 
 tute. For much of this time he has been 
 the missionary of that institution, and as 
 such he has gone into the homes where 
 only poverty, cruelty and sin abound, seek- 
 ing thus to rescue the children in these 
 homes and to save them to honest, respect- 
 able and useful lives. Thousands of chil- 
 dren have been saved by means of that 
 institution from lives of sin and have grown 
 up to be good citizens. Many rich people 
 have been, and still are, the patrons of that 
 noble institution. This good man of whom 
 I speak has come to know many of these 
 rich patrons as well as a great many of the 
 poor. Well, he said to me one time, "Do 
 you know, while we have missionaries to 
 the poor I think there ought to be mis- 
 sionaries to the rich, for many of them are 
 
THE POOR RICH 67 
 
 so poor in what are the truest riches." And 
 I suspect he was about right, although these 
 rich people would probably not relish being 
 told they are poor. It is possible that 
 some whom we count very, very rich are 
 very, very poor. Frederick W. Robertson, 
 one of the greatest preachers who ever 
 lived, once said in a sermon: "Many a man 
 would have done good if he had not had 
 a superabundance of the means of doing it. 
 Many a spiritual giant is buried under 
 mountains of gold." 
 
 Do not fancy that we are talking against 
 riches, for we are not, but are warning 
 against the notion that houses and lands 
 and money necessarily make anybody rich. 
 Though it seems a contradiction, yet it is 
 true that one may be rich and yet be poor, 
 just as one may be poor and still be rich. 
 As there are the poor poor, so there are the 
 poor rich — they are the rich who are with- 
 out God. Let me explain this further. 
 
 One may be rich in purse, but poor in 
 character. You ask, "What is character?" 
 or "What makes character?" Fine clothes 
 do not make character. A beautiful face 
 
68 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 and polished manners, while they are much 
 to be admired, do not make character. 
 Some people who are very handsome are 
 also very wicked. The living in an elegant 
 house, with luxurious furnishings and 
 belongings, and on the best street of the 
 city doesn't make character; far from it. 
 Character is not something about us, as big- 
 ness or smallness, stoutness or leanness. 
 Size and weight and strength and health do 
 not make character. Character may exist 
 apart from any or all these desirable quali- 
 ties. Education does not invariably make 
 character, for there are educated and 
 accomplished villains. Reputation is not 
 character, though some folks think it is. 
 Reputation is what others think of us, but 
 they do not always think correctly. Some 
 persons who have fair reputations and are 
 thought to be good people lead bad lives. 
 And some people who are truly good are, 
 for a time at least, thought to be wicked or 
 unworthy. Character is what we are, what 
 we know ourselves to be, and what we know 
 that God knows us to be. Otie has said, 
 "Character is what we are in the dark, while 
 
THE POOR RICH 69 
 
 reputation is what we are in the light." 
 Good character is right Hving. A person 
 who always aims to do as nearly right as he 
 knows has a good character. To find one's 
 character we must go deeper than the 
 clothes he wears; deeper than the skin; 
 deeper than the house he lives in; deeper 
 than the brain; we must go to what we call 
 the heart. "Out of it," as the fountain head, 
 the wise man says, "are the issues of life." 
 Not all rich men have good hearts; some 
 have, but others have vile and cruel hearts. 
 And some rich men become rich by wrong 
 and disgraceful and unjust means, in ways 
 that bring misery and suffering to many. 
 So that one maybe rich without being good, 
 and, therefore, wanting in character though 
 not lacking in money. 
 
 One may have all the comforts and lux- 
 uries that money can buy and still be poor. 
 The riches which one may seek and gain, 
 thinking they will make him happy, may be 
 the source or cause of the greatest misery. 
 This is not infrequently the case. One may 
 live in great style, like a prince royal with 
 every wish and desire that money can bring 
 
70 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 gratified, and others may think him the hap- 
 piest of mortals while he is all the time in 
 the greatest discontent. A gentleman was 
 once congratulating John Jacob Astor on his 
 magnificent home, and implied that its 
 owner must be a very happy man: '^ Happy ! 
 ME happy !^' was the reply. Riches cannot 
 give peace of mind; they cannot relieve the 
 aching heart; but they can and often do 
 give a great deal of unrest and anxious 
 care. Stephen Girard once wrote to a 
 friend: "I live like a galley-slave, constantly 
 occupied, and often passing the night with- 
 out sleeping. I am wrapped up in a laby- 
 rinth of affairs, and worn out with cares. I 
 do not value a fortune." "The man who 
 has no money is poor,'' says one, "but one 
 who has nothing but money is poorer than 
 he." 
 
 One may be rich as estimated by the 
 arithmetic of earth, but poor as counted by 
 the arithmetic of heaven—rich as the world 
 counts wealth, poor as the Lord calculates 
 riches. We may say of many a man, "He 
 is very rich," and we may long to be like 
 him; but heaven says, "He is poor, oh, so 
 
THE POOR RICH 71 
 
 poor!" Dr. William Mathews says: "The 
 poorest of all human beings is the man who 
 is rich in gold, but intellectually and spiritu- 
 ally bankrupt." 
 
 And, too, one may be rich In the things 
 that rot and rust, wear out and may be 
 stolen, but poor in the things that thieves 
 cannot take, that fire and flood cannot 
 destroy, and that will not rust nor decay — 
 rich in the things that fail, poor in the vir- 
 tues that are imperishable. One of our 
 essayists in speaking of the money king of 
 Great Britain, who died years ago, says, 
 "He was, withal, a little soul." Some rich 
 men of our times seem to be without any 
 soul. 
 
 The poor rich, then, are they who with 
 great capacity to do good in the wise and 
 benevolent use of their wealth are content 
 to live idle, luxurious, selfish and unfeeling 
 lives, knowing naught of responsibility to 
 mankind about them or to God above them. 
 Of this kind of rich men President Hyde 
 fitly asks, "What is the real nature of the 
 idle rich? Precisely what do they amount 
 to in the world?" and aptly and truly 
 
72 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 answers: "To eat the bread that other men 
 have toiled to plant, and reap, and trans- 
 port, and cook, and serve; to wear the silk 
 and woolen that other women have spun, 
 and woven, and cut, and sewed; to lie in a 
 couch that other hands have spread, and 
 under a roof that other arms have reared; 
 not that alone — for we all do as much — but 
 to consume these things upon themselves 
 with no sense of gratitude and fellowship 
 toward toiling men and women who bring 
 these gifts, with no strenuous effort to give 
 back to them something as valuable and 
 precious as that which they have given to 
 us — that is the meanness and selfishness and 
 sin and shame of wealth that is idle and 
 irresponsible. Against riches as such, no 
 sane man has a word to say. Against rich 
 men who are idle and irresponsible, against 
 rich women who are ungrateful and unserv- 
 iceable, the moral insight cries out in right- 
 eous indignation, and brands them as 
 parasites receiving all, but giving nothing in 
 return; gulping down the life-blood of their 
 fellows without so much as a 'thank you' in 
 return" (God's Ed^Lcat^on of Man, pp. "^^^ '^'S), 
 
THE POOR RICH 73 
 
 My young friends do not despise riches 
 nor rich men as such, but do despise to 
 ever get a penny in a bad, or wrong, or 
 unjust way, and do despise to ever use a 
 penny in a mean and purely selfish way. To 
 quote again from a writer already mentioned 
 (Dr. Mathews): "Money is a good thing, of 
 which every man should try to secure 
 enough to avoid dependence upon others, 
 either for his bread or opinions; but it is 
 not so good a thing that, to win it, one 
 should crawl in the dust, stoop to a mean or 
 dishonorable action, or give his conscience 
 a single pang." 
 
XTbe IRicb poor 
 
THE RICH POOR 
 
 We said in speaking of the poor rich that 
 one may be rich in purse and poor in char- 
 acter, and the opposite is true, that one may 
 be rich in character and poor in purse. 
 Thus it is possible for one to be rich even 
 while he is poor. And so, too, out of the 
 riches of character, or the riches that good 
 deeds and kind acts constitute, it is possible 
 for the poor to make others rich. This is 
 the meaning of the Scripture, wherein the 
 apostle speaks of the disciples of the Lord, 
 "As poor, yet making many rich; as having 
 nothing and yet possessing all things." 
 This seems a plain contradiction; and it 
 could not be true that one may be rich even 
 while he is poor were it not that there are 
 different kinds of riches. It is the fact that 
 there are different kinds of riches that 
 enable many persons to become the rich 
 poor, who are sometimes called "the Lord's 
 poor." 
 
 77 
 
yZ ABOUT MONEY 
 
 In speaking of the rich poor we are deal- 
 ing with what has been since the days of 
 the Psalmist one of the most difficult of all 
 subjects. Why the good are so often poor — 
 live and die poor — is a most perplexing 
 problem. No doubt there are reasons for 
 this, but these reasons are surely known 
 only to God. Certainly it is not because 
 God orders it so. Perhaps it is better for 
 some of us to be poor than it would be for 
 us to be rich, only we do not want other 
 people to tell us this. But perhaps if we 
 could only see deeper into the mystery of 
 this life we would be far less inclined to 
 complain of our lot than we often are. 
 Perhaps, too, we do more work for the Lord 
 than we would if we were rich. I frequently 
 hear people wish they were rich for the 
 good they could then do with money. But 
 I have known several cases where persons 
 were earnest and devoted workers in the 
 church when they were comparatively poor, 
 yet when they prospered and became well- 
 to-do they were not nearly so much inter- 
 ested in the church, and did very little work 
 for the Lord. I wonder if this is not gener- 
 
THE RICH POOR 79 
 
 ally the case. Perhaps this is the reason 
 why the Psalmist warns us, "If riches 
 increase, set not your heart upon them." 
 
 And then, no doubt, the poor are kept 
 from many temptations and anxieties that 
 the rich encounter. Perhaps so, though 
 almost any of us would be willing to accept 
 the wealth of the rich — anxieties, cares, 
 risks and all. To be sure the poor have 
 their temptations, anxieties and cares, and 
 they are many and fierce and harassing; 
 but so have the rich theirs, and possibly 
 they are more numerous, fiercer and harder 
 to endure. The temptations of the rich are 
 peculiar, as are those of the poor, and of 
 each class different and often misunderstood 
 by the other. 
 
 Not every person who is good, industrious 
 and saving becomes rich. Generally such a 
 person does, but not always. I have known 
 good people who always worked hard, 
 never took a vacation, did not spend money 
 in bad habits, and were economical, and yet 
 they did not become rich. Why is this the 
 case? No doubt God knows why; certainly 
 we cannot know unmistakably in many 
 
8o ABOUT MONEY 
 
 cases. We may correctly surmise the rea- 
 sons in some cases. 
 
 We may know some things which have to 
 do with poverty. For instance, we do know 
 that some good people are not good man- 
 agers, they do not look out for the "pen- 
 nies,'' and so they do not have the "pounds" 
 to care for. They may be wasteful and 
 extravagant in a small way, but which, with 
 a small income, keeps them under the har- 
 row of being "hard up." They are often 
 too much influenced in their manner of liv- 
 ing by their neighbors, and so all the while 
 are on the verge of that dependence which 
 misfortune precipitates. 
 
 We know well that many good people 
 undertake to do what they have little or no 
 training for, and so under this disadvantage 
 they "go to the wall." They mean well, but 
 do not plan well, when it is the wise plan- 
 ning more than the well meaning that 
 brings business success; they are not as 
 careful and wise as they must be to succeed 
 in these times. As a rule careful training 
 for any pursuit never was more imperative 
 than now. What would answer for our 
 
THE RICH POOR 8i 
 
 fathers will not serve for us; and the future 
 will make still higher demands as the con- 
 ditions of success. These well-meaning but 
 illy-qualified people, would not wrong any- 
 body, nor take what is not theirs in any 
 way, but with all their excellent traits they 
 do not "get on," as we say. A man who has 
 won his way up from poverty to a place in 
 the front rank of millionaires has recently 
 said, "Business methods have changed; 
 good-will counts for less and less." The 
 latter clause is the saddest admission of the 
 commercial world to-day. This fact, if it be 
 a fact, that "good-will counts for less and 
 less" all the while, is perhaps the ground 
 for the question which is frequently raised, 
 "Can business be conducted on Christian 
 principles and succeed?" Of course it can; 
 we know it is so conducted in many cases, 
 but it must be truly Christian, in both method 
 and motive, and it must be the business that 
 brings to it all needed qualifications and 
 competence. The failure of many a truly 
 Christian business man is owing to some- 
 thing else than to his Christian principles. 
 He may be wanting in sagacity, tact, prepa- 
 
82 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 ration, or other qualities of the successful 
 career. God does not work miracles in the 
 business world to save His own dear children 
 from consequences of their incapacity. But 
 not always is the failure of a Christian busi- 
 ness man traceable to incapacity or lack of 
 training, or rashness, or anything else that 
 we can discover. The reasons are beyond 
 our finding out. Fortuity often seems to 
 have a place in the adversities of life. 
 
 And then we must not lose sight of the 
 fact that in the progress of society many 
 good people are left behind in the race 
 through no fault of their own. Their abil- 
 ity to work and provide for their household 
 has been superseded by machinery, and 
 they are too advanced in years to find their 
 adjustment to the new order of things. 
 This is constantly coming to pass and is a 
 most pathetic spectacle. Then, combina- 
 tions in most or many industries and depart- 
 ment establishments have forced many 
 reputable individual dealers to the wall and 
 made independent enterprises well-nigh 
 impossible. And, too, there are always 
 those whose health breaks down under the 
 
THE RICH POOR 83 
 
 strain of the struggle of life, or misfortunes 
 come upon them so that, while good people, 
 they live and die poor. 
 
 It is also true that some good people are 
 not careful to avoid going in debt, and are 
 thereby hampered all the while, and in con- 
 sequence remain poor all their days. Boys, 
 let me urge upon you, particularly, that you 
 resolve sternly, in youth, never to go in 
 debt; and do not go in debt if you can pos- 
 sibly avoid it, and generally one can. To 
 avoid debt, live within your income, how- 
 ever small it may be, and spend money 
 when you have earned it, not before. 
 Whatever you may earn, spend less, and 
 you will sometime be rich and in a way that 
 your riches will be an honor to you. Do 
 not go in debt. One keen observer has 
 said, "It is difficult for a man who is con- 
 stantly in debt to be truthful." Poor Rich- 
 ard' s Al7nanach.2i^ this proverb, "The second 
 vice is lying, the first is running in debt"; 
 and also this, "Lying rides on Debt's back." 
 
 There are other persons who, though 
 good at heart, are easy-going, shiftless and 
 without "snap" or force of character — 
 
84 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 "ne'er-do-wells" — and so do not prosper; 
 while others are snappish, crabbed and of 
 repelling rather than attractive manner, so 
 that, though good people at heart, they do 
 not draw other people to themselves or to 
 their business, and do not succeed. It was 
 once asked of a celebrated seamen's 
 preacher whether his son-in-law were a 
 Christian or not? "I doubt if he really is," 
 was his reply, "but he is a very sweet sin- 
 ner." Truly good and Christian people 
 differ very much among themselves. Some 
 are not of a sweet and amiable disposition, 
 though they are severely honest and just 
 in all their dealings. This may be the 
 reason why they remain poor. Perhaps we 
 have not recognized the graces of cordiality 
 and cheerfulness as factors of success as 
 much as we should. 
 
 There are still other persons who really 
 do not care to be rich, and who could never 
 consent to become rich in the way that 
 some people think one only can become 
 rich in these times, and while so many in 
 the world are poor. They would rather do 
 without all the good and nice things that 
 
THE RICH POOR 85 
 
 money can buy than to get money in such 
 ways as some rich people have gotten their 
 money; and so would you, I hope. Riches, 
 as they look at them, "come high," and they 
 are not willing to "pay the price." Some 
 rich people, we must not forget, obtain their 
 wealth in strict conformity to the laws of 
 truth and right — by Christian methods. 
 
 And there are still others who are so con- 
 stituted, or built, as we say, that they would 
 rather not acquire a fortune, but prefer to 
 use up what they get as they go along; and 
 they are not spendthrifts either. They 
 could easily become rich if they would 
 resolve to do so, but they take a greater sat- 
 isfaction in seeing and knowing while they 
 live the good their money can do. There 
 are more of this kind of poor than we know 
 about, for they do not get their names into 
 the papers like some of the poor rich do. 
 They build a monument for themselves 
 while they live, but it is not one of marble, 
 or granite, or the kind set up in the ceme- 
 tery. They know of a worthy young man 
 or woman who is trying to get an educa- 
 tion, and they give a lift. They learn of a 
 
86 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 struggling church, and they help that. 
 They see a city's need, and they establish a 
 library or a hospital — sources of light and 
 knowledge, and of relief from suffering for 
 generations of mankind. They believe that 
 a man should administer his estate himself 
 and for the good of his fellow beings in his 
 own lifetime, and they act upon it. The 
 number of these is constantly increasing. 
 Who shall say that this is not a good way for 
 one to keep poor and make sure of dying 
 poor if he is convinced that he ought? If this 
 were done oftener many a valuable estate 
 would be saved from the hands of unprin- 
 cipled mien, and would become a source of 
 perpetual blessing to the world. The news- 
 papers told us a short time ago of lawyers' 
 fees to the amount of two millions of dollars 
 for settling an estate in the West. The term 
 the "gospel of w^ealth" came into use many 
 years ago, and has as its chief expounder 
 Mr. Andrew Carnegie, whose position among 
 the influential men of our times entitles 
 his words to the consideration of rich and 
 poor. "The gospel of wealth," he says, "but 
 echoes Christ's words. It calls upon the 
 
THE RICH POOR 87 
 
 millionaire to sell all that he hath and give 
 it in the highest and best form to the poor 
 by administering his estate himself for the 
 good of his fellows, before he is called upon 
 to lie down and rest upon the bosom of 
 Mother Earth. So doing he will approach 
 his end, no longer the ignoble hoarder of 
 useless millions, poor, very poor indeed, in 
 money, but rich, very rich, twenty times a 
 millionaire still, in the affection, gratitude 
 and admiration of his fellow men. . . . This 
 much is sure: against such riches as these 
 no bar will be found at the gates of Para- 
 dise" {North American Review, Dec. 1889). 
 And in his latest book, The Ejnpire of 
 Business, he says, "The only noble use of 
 surplus wealth is this: That it be regarded 
 as a sacred trust, to be administered by its 
 possessor, into whose hands it flows, for the 
 highest good of the people." 
 
 We have been describing those whom the 
 world calls poor, but in reality they are 
 often the rich; despite their poverty they 
 are wealthy. The old meaning, now no 
 longer given to the word wealth, is "well- 
 being," a term inappropriate when applied 
 
88 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 to the possessions of many a rich man. Mr. 
 Ruskin once said of certain rich men, their 
 wealth should be called their "ill-th," 
 because it is not "well," but "ill" with their 
 souls. This reminds us of what Poor Richard 
 says of the vendue of fineries and knick- 
 knacks, "You call them goods; but if you 
 do not take care they will prove evils to 
 some of you." Often it is the case that the 
 poor who are rich only in faith and good 
 works, are the truly wealthy. It is well with 
 their souls no matter what 'their bank 
 account may be or may not be. And so 
 out of their well-being, though poor, they 
 have enriched others and the world. The 
 choicest and most valuable of all earth's 
 precious treasures belong to them. 
 
 We may appropriately ask. What is the 
 true measure of the value of things? Is it 
 not, in brief, in their capacity to satisfy? 
 And how much gold, pray, does it require 
 to satisfy the man who counts on money to 
 fulfil the desires of his mind? Is it not 
 always "more, more, more," up into the 
 millions, to any who expect that money can 
 satisfy? The things that truly satisfy, and 
 
THE RICH POOR 89 
 
 satisfy most, are beyond all price — are inval- 
 uable, that is, cannot be estimated. Among 
 them are these: wisdom, truth, a good 
 name, a righteous life. Who can appraise 
 these at their full value? The wise man of 
 old attempted to describe the worth of the 
 first of those things which make up the 
 wealth of the rich poor: "Happy is the 
 man that getteth understanding: For the 
 merchandise of it is better than the mer- 
 chandise of silver, and the gain thereof than 
 fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: 
 and all the things thou canst desire are not 
 to be compared unto her." These — wisdom, 
 truth, a good name, a righteous life — satisfy; 
 and these make up the unfailing riches of 
 the Lord's poor. 
 
 "Among all the services of adversity," 
 says Ian MacLaren, "surely the best is this, 
 that it teaches us at last the difference 
 between the goods we hold in barns and 
 those that are stored in the soul." This 
 world has never been without its rich poor; 
 and their gifts have ever been the most pre- 
 cious benefactions to the human family. 
 The great fact which they ever proclaim is 
 
90 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 that money is not essential to true riches. 
 "PhilHps Brooks, Thoreau, Garrison, Emer- 
 son, Beecher, Agassiz were rich without 
 money," declares a popular writer. "They 
 saw the splendor in the flower, the glory in 
 the grass, books in running brooks, sermons 
 in stones, and good in everything. They 
 knew that the man who owns the landscape 
 seldom paid the taxes on it. . . . They 
 knew that man could not live by estates, 
 dollars and bread alone, and that if he could 
 he would only be an animal. They believed 
 that the higher life demands a higher food" 
 {Architects of Fate, p. 246). 
 
 And how the Bible abounds in examples 
 of the Lord's poor! Jesus is to be named 
 first of all among the rich poor. He was 
 rich, yet became poor, so poor! He was 
 born in a stable; He had "no place to lay 
 His head"; He was buried in a borrowed 
 grave! Yet, out of His poverty the world is 
 made rich. The gospels contain the record 
 of a poor widow who cast into the treasury 
 of the temple "two mites which make a far- 
 thing." Small though her gift was, so small 
 that it seems scarcely worth while mention- 
 
THE RICH POOR 91 
 
 ing it at all, yet our Lord declared that it 
 was more than the large offerings of the 
 rich. In her "two mites" all after ages are 
 enriched. The apostles of Jesus were poor; 
 they were fishermen, tent-makers, slaves 
 and working men and women. "They came 
 from fishing villages, from little homes 
 among the hills, from back streets in great 
 cities. Nobody knew them. Nobody ever 
 heard of them before. . . . And poor and 
 despised and ill-treated though they were, 
 they made the world rich by the story they 
 told." Out of their poverty we, to-day, are 
 made rich with invaluable and enduring 
 riches. 
 
Zhc IRtcb IRtcb 
 
THE RICH RICH 
 
 Two things are said of a certain man 
 whose name is mentioned in one of the gos- 
 pels, namely, that he was rich and that he 
 was a disciple of Jesus. In another place in 
 the Bible we are told of this same man that 
 he was a "good" and a "just" man. It was 
 this good and just man, Joseph of Arima- 
 thea, who, after the body of Jesus was taken 
 down from the cross, assisted by other dis- 
 ciples, tenderly and lovingly prepared the 
 Lord's body for burial, and then laid it in 
 his own new tomb, hewn out of the rock in 
 his garden. This man had possessions, and 
 was also rich in character. In one of these 
 talks we said that some people are doubly 
 poor, that they are both poor and bad. 
 This Joseph who is described in the gos- 
 pels, was doubly rich — he had money and 
 was good; he was truly a wealthy man. I 
 am very glad that there was one rich man 
 among the disciples. The fact that there 
 was one of the disciples who had his own 
 
 95 
 
96 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 new and rock-hewn tomb, "wherein never 
 man lay," helps to make the evidence more 
 convincing that it was the Lord and not 
 some other person who rose again from the 
 dead. It shows also that riches do not 
 exclude from discipleship to Jesus. We 
 may say, not of Joseph alone, but of all 
 persons who are good and rich, that they 
 are doubly rich, or that they are the rich 
 rich. 
 
 Such men have lived all along through 
 the past, and such men are now living. 
 They are the men who have gotten great 
 wealth and who have used it or a large part 
 of it in ways of doing good. Such persons 
 are, in this respect at least, the doubly rich. 
 A rich man may at the same time be a good 
 man, and for such a rich man to use his 
 riches in the way that he thinks is best is 
 better no doubt than it would be for him to 
 turn it over to anybody else or to give it all 
 to the poor. It is true Jesus said to one 
 rich and influential young man, "Sell what- 
 soever thou hast, and give to the poor," but 
 this was said not to a rich rich, but to a poor 
 rich, young man — said to a man who 
 
THE RICH RICH 97 
 
 "trusted" In his riches, and whose riches 
 kept him from becoming His disciple. Many 
 a rich man is making a far better use of his 
 money than anybody else could for him. If 
 the property of a rich man could be taken 
 from him by the law and given into the 
 hands of a philanthropist, an editor, or a 
 minister to manage in the interest of 
 "humanity," the probability is that there 
 would not be a cent of it left at the end of 
 five years (Mathews). "The rich Chris- 
 tian," says President Hyde, "is God's finest 
 masterpiece in the world to-day." 
 
 The rich rich are those who use their 
 money in such a way that it becomes a 
 source of good to their fellow beings, often 
 of perpetual and increasing benefit to man- 
 kind. A rich man in California gave 
 $10,000,000 to found a university on the 
 Pacific slope, and provided munificently for 
 its continuance. That and other kindred 
 institutions planted in a similar spirit will 
 be a blessing to unnumbered young people 
 for all time to come. A rich eastern family 
 established a school of the highest order at 
 Nashville, Tennessee, for the colored youth 
 
98 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 of the southland. One rich man gave a mil- 
 lion dollars to build and equip a library at 
 Baltimore, Maryland. Other rich men have 
 done the same thing for other large cities, 
 and some for smaller cities. This is a most 
 excellent use of riches. Another rich man 
 gave a million dollars to the American Mis- 
 sionary Association to help establish schools 
 and carry on missionary work among the 
 neglected peoples in our own land; and 
 other rich men have given immense sums 
 of money for missionary work in foreign 
 lands. Who has not heard the name of 
 William E. Dodge? He was one of the 
 doubly rich men — rich in the things of this 
 world and heir of eternal life. He was not 
 only a good man but became rich and used 
 his money to do good. He gave liberally 
 to help many worthy objects — missions, 
 schools, charitable institutions and the like. 
 He was one of the rich rich and, while he 
 has gone, his example is inclining many 
 other rich men to do likewise. They see 
 from his life and influence that it pays in 
 the noblest sense thus to use one's wealth. 
 Wealth to such a man means "well-being" 
 
THE RICH RICH 99 
 
 to multitudes of the earth. Another rich 
 man yet with us has given hundreds of 
 thousands of money to colleges and schools 
 in many places, east, west, north and south, 
 and given it in such a way that it has 
 enlarged his gifts many-fold. He is one of 
 the rich rich. The rich rich are not all 
 men. A young woman of our times, whose 
 name it is not necessary to mention, has 
 employed her wealth, not in a "queenly" 
 but in a Christlike way; has given a ministry 
 to the suffering and needy and to the bet- 
 terment of the world, which is Christlike in 
 its discernment, discrimination and tender- 
 ness. She, too, is one of the rich rich, the 
 doubly rich, whom this nation delights to 
 honor. 
 
 You would like to know how these came 
 to be rich. In some instances their riches 
 came by inheritance, perhaps, but generally, 
 or in many instances, the persons who get 
 rich and remain so and are numbered among 
 the doubly rich, got their possessions in 
 ways and by processes which are still open 
 to others. Many of them, we know, began 
 with little or nothing, and they moved 
 
 l.ofC. 
 
loo ABOUT MONEY 
 
 upward step by step until they came into 
 large possessions. Generally there are 
 three principal rounds in the ladder whose 
 top is wealth: 
 
 The first round is hard and honest work 
 at whatever one can do the best. It requires 
 some search and study often to find out 
 what that is. But if one follows the clues 
 that come as he goes along he can usually 
 find out what he is best adapted to do. 
 Finding that out, then let him make the 
 most careful preparation possible, and then, 
 more than all else, work. When asked for 
 the secret of his success in life a celebrated 
 artist replied, "I have no secret but hard 
 work." 
 
 It is not necessary that one has even a 
 "start" in life in order to succeed. Hun- 
 dreds and thousands of men have won large 
 fortunes with little or nothing to start on — 
 but they worked. They were not of those 
 who waited for the iron to heat, but made 
 the iron hot by striking. The history of 
 many a large fortune is a story of small 
 beginnings and persistent and determinate 
 effort. A gentleman of my acquaintance, 
 
THE RICH RICH loi 
 
 not to mention examples that the books 
 give, who is to-day a contractor of railroads 
 and other large engineering projects, and 
 is known beyond our nation's boundaries, 
 began, I have been told, as water boy to the 
 workmen on one of the first railroads built 
 in the West. He told me once that a man 
 only saved what he used for the good of 
 mankind. Another gentleman of my 
 acquaintance, a prominent banker and pro- 
 prietor of other industries, got his start in 
 life by selling receipts for a simple and useful 
 commodity, often necessitating absence for 
 weeks at a time from his widowed mother's 
 side. In both these instances, as in many 
 others I have known, work — persevering, 
 unflinching, unfastidious work — was the first 
 qualification of a successful career. So it is 
 generally. 
 
 The second round in the ladder, whose 
 top leans on wealth, is saving habits, or 
 economy of one's earnings. We would 
 make the emphasis upon the "habit" of sav- 
 ing rather than upon the amount of one's 
 savings. As it is the minutes that make the 
 hours, so it is the cents that make the dol- 
 
102 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 lars. Take care of the minutes and the 
 hours will take care of themselves, In like 
 manner take care of the cents and the dol- 
 lars will not need special care. A person 
 who spends as much money as he earns 
 every week will never become rich by such 
 a process. But if a person manages to keep 
 back, or to save something every week, no 
 matter how small the amount^ the begin- 
 nings of his fortune are already made. 
 "The beginning of a deposit, however 
 small, in a savings bank," is the statement 
 of one of our thoughtful men, "may be 
 regarded as the crisis of many a moral des- 
 tiny." If a person manages to save back 
 something from what he earns, and puts it 
 where it will earn more, he will, in time, be 
 well to do, will have money with which to 
 do good. "Remember," '^^y^ Poor Richard, 
 "that money is of the prolific, generating 
 nature. Money can beget money and its 
 offspring can beget more, and so on." It is 
 not what is earned, so much as what is saved, 
 that counts in the accumulation of wealth. 
 Recent utterances of Mr. Carnegie to rail- 
 road men embody valuable counsel to every 
 
THE RICH RICH 103 
 
 young man: "What all of you should strive 
 for is a competence. . . . No man 
 should be happy without it, if it be 
 within reach, and I urge all of you to 
 save a part of your earnings these pros- 
 perous days and put it in savings banks at 
 interest, or better still, buy a home with it." 
 "Out of every dollar earned save twenty-five 
 cents. Save seventy-five if you can, but 
 never less than twenty-five," is one of the 
 rules for success given by Mr. Russell Sage. 
 These two points are admirably summed 
 up by Benjamin Franklin in that quaint, 
 old, but wise little volume, Poor Richard' s 
 Almanac, as follows: "In short, the way 
 to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the 
 way to the market. It depends chiefly on 
 two words, industry and frugality; that is, 
 waste neither time nor money, but make 
 the best use of both. Without industry and 
 frugality nothing will do, and with them, 
 everything. He that gets all he can hon- 
 estly and saves all he gets (necessary 
 expenses excepted) will certainly become 
 rich, if that Being who governs the world, 
 to whom all should look for a blessing on 
 
I04 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 their honest endeavors, doth not, in his wise 
 providence, otherwise determine." 
 
 This last sentence leads us to say, finally, 
 that one other thing is necessary in order to 
 become truly rich, or doubly rich, and that 
 is the ble^.sing of God. Again we quote 
 from Poor Richard: "After all, do not 
 depend too much upon your own industry 
 and frugality and prudence, though excel- 
 lent things, for they may all be blasted 
 without the blessing of heaven; and there- 
 fore ask that blessing humbly, and be not 
 uncharitable to those that at present seem 
 to want (lack?) it, but comfort and help 
 them. Remember, Job suffered and was 
 afterward prosperous." A person is poor, 
 at least is only half rich, no matter how 
 much money he may have, who does not 
 take God into the account in all his get- 
 tings. Without a recognition of his stew- 
 ardship to God all the possessions of the 
 rich leave them among the poor rich. 
 
 God does most wonderfully honor His 
 promises to those who take Him into their 
 confidence and share with Him their in- 
 crease. A gentleman of my acquaintance 
 
THE RICH RICH 105 
 
 has a peculiar kind of mathematical sciencCc 
 In his mathematics ''^Ten 7ui7ttcs one equals 
 eleven!' He says, and his statement is 
 borne out by a large and increasing number 
 of people, that only by practicing such 
 mathematics has he been blessed with an 
 enlarging possession. I knew a man who 
 died a few years ago who was the most won- 
 derful example of what God can do for one 
 — one even in humble, obscure life — who 
 seeks His guidance, that ever came to my 
 notice. This man was a country farmer, 
 and with no resources of getting money 
 other than the soil of his, not large, farm. 
 Over and beyond his living expenses and 
 liberal support of the church where he was 
 an honored member, this man, in his life- 
 time, gave away to the work of his denomi- 
 nation at large the sum of one hundred and 
 twenty-five thousand dollars. And at his 
 death he left another hundred thousand 
 dollars to be applied in the same way; in all, 
 a quarter of a million dollars — the proceeds 
 of a farm — given to Christian work. Surely 
 it paid him to take God into his partnership 
 and to seek His blessing. In the midst of 
 
io6 ABOUT MONEY 
 
 complaints that tilling the soil was unprofit- 
 able and in a section of the country where 
 other farmers failed and their farms were 
 mortgaged, and some even sold on mortgage, 
 this man prospered, and by the blessing of 
 God upon his labors became rich, rich in 
 purse and rich in faith and good works — one 
 of the Lord's noblemen — and so in fulness 
 of years he passed on to the enjoyment of 
 the inheritance which he had laid up in 
 heaven, heir and possessor of eternal life. 
 Thus rises the rich rich man to his rewards. 
 And so, before all else and above all else, 
 seek the blessing and guidance of God in 
 all plans and efforts to amass wealth. 
 
MAY 25 1903 
 
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