Thrift

by Samuel Smiles

This, however, is not the usual practice. The young man now spends, or desires to spend, quite as liberally, and often much more liberally, than his father, who is about to end his career. He begins life where his father left off. He spends more than his father did at his age, and soon finds himself up to his ears in debt. To satisfy his incessant wants, he resorts to unscrupulous means, and to illicit gains. He tries to make money rapidly; he speculates, over-trades, and is speedily wound up. Thus he obtains experience; but it is the result, not of well-doing, but of ill-doing.

Socrates recommends fathers of families to observe the practice of their thrifty neighbours—of those who spend their means to the best advantage,—and to profit by their example. Thrift is essentially practical, and can best be taught by facts. Two men earn, say, five shillings a day. They are in precisely the same condition as respects family living, and expenditure Yet the one says he cannot save, and does not; while the other says he can save, and regularly deposits part of his savings in a savings bank, and eventually becomes a capitalist.

Samuel Johnson fully knew the straits of poverty. He once signed his name Impransus, or Dinnerless. He had walked the streets with Savage, not knowing where to lay his head at night. Johnson never forgot the poverty through which he passed in his early life, and he was always counselling his friends and readers to avoid it. Like Cicero, he averred that the best source of wealth or well-being was economy. He called it the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the mother of Liberty. his mind, his character. Self-respect, originating in self-love, instigates the first step of improvement. It stimulates a man to rise, to look upward, to develop his intelligence, to improve his condition. Self-respect is the root of most of the virtues—of cleanliness, chastity, reverence, honesty, sobriety. To think meanly of one's self is to sink; sometimes to descend a precipice at the bottom of which is infamy.

Every man can help himself to some extent. We are not mere straws thrown upon the current to mark its course; but possessed of freedom of action, endowed with power to stem the waves and rise above them, each marking out a course for himself. We can each elevate ourselves in the scale of moral being. We can cherish pure thoughts. We can perform good actions. We can live soberly and frugally. We can provide against the evil day. We can read good books, listen to wise teachers, and place ourselves under the divinest influences on earth. We can live for the highest purposes, and with the highest aims in view.

"Self-love and social are the same," says one of our poets. The man who improves himself, improves the world. He adds one more true man to the mass. And the mass being made up of individuals, it is clear that were each to improve himself, the result would be the improvement of the whole. Social advancement is the consequence of individual advancement. The whole cannot be pure, unless the individuals composing it are pure. Society at large is but the reflex of individual conditions. All this is but the repetition of a truism, but truisms have often to be repeated to make their full impression.

Then again, a man, when he has improved himself, is better able to improve those who are brought into contact with him. He has more power. His sphere of vision is enlarged. He sees more clearly the defects in the condition of others that might be remedied. He can lend a more active helping hand to raise them. He has done his duty by himself, and can with more authority urge upon others the necessity of doing the like duty to themselves. How can a man be a social elevator, who is himself walking in the mire of self-indulgence? How can he teach sobriety or cleanliness, if he be himself drunken or foul? "Physician, heal thyself," is the answer of his neighbours.

The sum and substance of our remarks is this: In all the individual reforms or improvements that we desire, we must begin with ourselves. We must exhibit our gospel in our own life. We must teach by our own example. If we would have others elevated, we must elevate ourselves. Each man can exhibit the results in his own person. He can begin with self-respect.

The uncertainty of life is a strong inducement to provide against the evil day. To do this is a moral and social, as well as a religious duty. "He that provideth not for his own, and especially for those of his own household, hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel."

The uncertainty of life is proverbially true. The strongest and healthiest man may be stricken down in a moment, by accident or disease. If we take human life in the mass, we cannot fail to recognize the uncertainty of life as much as we do the certainty of death.

There is a striking passage in Addison's "Vision of Mirza," in which life is pictured as a passage over a bridge of about a hundred arches. A black cloud hangs over each end of the bridge. At the entrance to it there are hidden pitfalls very thickly set, through which throngs disappear, so soon as they have placed their feet upon the bridge. They grow thinner towards the centre; they gradually disappear; until at length only a few persons reach the further side, and these also having dropped through the pitfalls, the bridge at its further extremity becomes entirely clear. The description of Addison corresponds with the results of the observations made as to the duration of human life.