88 THE HOME, FARM AND BUSINESS CYCLOPEDIA. 



then the chance is that you do more than a wrong thing, that you do 

 wrong upon philosophical system, and will very soon substitute custom 

 for conscience. Never be argued out of your soul, never be argued out of 

 your honour, and never be argued into believing that soul and honour do 

 not run a terrible risk if you limp into life with the load of a debt on 

 your shoulders, and, as the debt grows heavy and heavier, the hiss of some 

 tying fiend in your ear, " Shake it off; you need not be bankrupt ; there 

 is an alternative." " Oh, heavens ! what alternative, say ! " and the fiend 

 Avhispers low, suasive words for the fiends argue well suasive words 

 which, put in plain English, mean this : " Be a cheat ; be a swindler." 



Shake hands, brave young friend ; we are agreed. You consent to 

 have horror of debt. You will abstain, you will pinch, you will work 

 harder and harder, if needful. You will not slink through the crowd as 

 a debtor. 



Now comes the next danger. You will not incur debt for yourself, 

 but you have a friend. Pythias, your friend, your familiar the man you 

 like best and see most of says to you, " Damon, be my security your 

 name to this bill ! " Heaven forbid that I should cry out to Damon, 

 " Pythias means to cheat thee beware ! " But I address to Damon this 

 observation : " Pythias asks thee to guarantee that three, six, or twelve 

 months hence he will pay to another man say to Dionysius so many 

 pounds sterling." Here your first duty as an honest man is not to Pyth- 

 ias, but to Dionysius. Suppose some accident happen one of these 

 which, however impossible it may seem to Pythias, constantly happen to 

 the Pythiases of other Damons who draw bills on the bank of Futurity ; 

 suppose that the smut or the rain spoil the crops on which Pythias relies, 

 or the cargoes he expects from Marseilles, California, Utopia, go down to 

 the bottomless seas Dionysus must come upon you ! Can you pay to 

 Dionysius what you pledge yourself to pay to him in spite of those acci- 

 dents ? He thinks those accidents not only possible, but probable, or he 

 would not require your surety, nor charge twenty per cent, for his loan ; 

 and, therefore, since he clearly doubts Pythias, his real trust is in you. 

 Do not merit the trust ? Can you pay the money if Pythias can not ? and, 

 allowing that you pay the money, are your other obligations in life such 

 as to warrant that sacrifice to Friendship ? If you can not pay, or if you owe 

 it to others more sacred than Pythias himself owe it to your parents, 

 your plighted bride, or wedded wife, or the children to whom, what, before 

 their birth, was your fortune, has become the trust money for their pro- 

 vision not to hazard for Pythias that for which, if lost, not you alone 

 but others must suffer, then do not common duty and common honesty 



