84 THE HOME, FARM AND BUSINESS CYCLOPAEDIA. 



addition to the moral qualities I have named, he establish a character for 

 other attributes which have their own price in the money market if he 

 exhibits a superior intelligence, skill, energy, zeal his labour rises in 

 value. Thus, in the humblest class of life, character is money; and accord- 

 ing as the man earns or spends the money, money in turn becomes char- 

 acter. 



As money is the most evident power in the world's uses, so the use that 

 he makes of money is often all that the world knows about a man. Is 

 our money gained justly and spent prudently ? our character establishes- 

 a claim on respect. Is it gained nobly and spent beneficently ? our char- 

 acter commands more than respect it wins a place in that higher sphere 

 of opinion which comprises admiration, gratitude, love. Is money inherited 

 without merit of ours, lavished recklessly away ? our character disperses 

 itself with the spray of the golden shower it is not the money alone of 

 which we are spendthrifts. Is money meanly acquired, selfishly hoarded ? 

 it is not the money alone of which we are misers ; we are starving our 

 own human hearts, depriving them of their natural ailment in the approv- 

 al and affection of others. We invest the money which we fancy so safe 

 out at compound interest in the very worst possession a man can purchase 

 viz., an odious reputation. In fact, the more we look round the more 

 we shall come to acknowledge that there is no test of a man's character 

 more generally adopted than the way in which his money is managed. 

 Money is a terrible blab ; she will betray the secrets of her owner w T hat- 

 ever he do to gag her. His virtues will creep out in her whisper, his. 

 vices she will cry aloud at the top of her tongue. 



But the management of money is an art ? True ; but that which we 

 call an art means an improvement, and not a deterioration, of a something 

 existent already in nature ; and the artist can only succeed in improving 

 his art in proportion as he improves himself in the qualities which the art 

 demands in the artist. Now the management of money is, in much, the 

 management of self. If Heaven allotted to each man seven guardian an- 

 gels, five of them at least would be found night and day hovering over his 

 pockets. 



On the first rule of the art of managing money all preceptors must be 

 agreed. It is told in three words, " Horror of Debt." 



Nurse, cherish, never cavil away, the wholesome horror of DEBT. Per- 

 sonal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity, and human 

 happiness. Man hazards the condition and loses the virtues of freeman 

 in proportion as he accustoms his thoughts to view, without anguish and 

 shame, his lapse into the bondage of debtor. Debt is to man what the. 



