"The expenditure of money is no easy matter. It is wrong to let the poor want. It is wrong to starve the nature which asks for other things than food. There is only one principle of guidance. Whatever is done must be done in thought for others, and not in thought for ourselves. Money on luxuries which end in ourselves is wrongly spent; money spent on luxuries—on scents, sounds and sights—which directly or indirectly pass on to others is rightly spent. The limit of luxury is the power of sharing."
The Service of God, Canon Barnett.
"All that depends on individual choice—our recreations, our expenditure—can be brought to one test, which we are generally able to apply: Does this or that help me to do my work more effectively? To us most literally, even if the confession overwhelms us with shame, whatsoever is not of faith is sin."
Bishop Westcott.
"Imitate a little child.... While you gather and use this world's goods with one hand, always let your other be fast in your Heavenly Father's hand, and look round from time to time, and make sure that He is satisfied."
S. Francis de Sales.
DECEMBER 19
"I will take heart to lay down what I hold to be a fundamental rule, that, while we endeavour to gain the largest and keenest power of appreciating all that is noblest in nature and art and literature, we must seek to live on as little as will support the full vigour of our life and work. The standard cannot be fixed. It will necessarily vary, within certain limits, according to the nature and office of each man. But generally we shall strive diligently to suppress all wants which do not tend through their satisfaction to create a nobler type of manhood, and individually we shall recognise no wants which do not express what is required for the due cultivation of our own powers and the fulfilment of that which we owe to others. We shall guard ourselves against the temptations of artificial wants which the ingenuity of producers offers in seductive forms. We shall refuse to admit that the caprice of fashion represents any valuable element in our constitution, or calls into play any faculties which would otherwise be unused, or encourages industry. On the contrary, we shall see in the dignity and changelessness of Eastern dress a typical condemnation of our restless inconstancy. We shall perceive, and act as perceiving, that the passion for novelty is morally and materially wasteful: that it distracts and confuses our power of appreciating true beauty: that it tends to the constant displacement of labour: that it produces instability both in the manufacture and in the sale of goods to the detriment of economy. We shall, to sum up all in one master-principle, estimate value and costs in terms of life, as Mr. Ruskin has taught us; and, accepting this principle, we shall seek nothing of which the cost to the producer so measured exceeds the gain to ourselves."
Christian Social Union Addresses, Bishop Westcott.