"I do not care to offend you by harsh terms, but if we agree that it is a folly, that is reason enough for wishing to be wiser."
"But it is very easy to spend money when one is with others, and one does not like to be called 'tight.'"
"John," said the minister, "I do not propose to argue with you, but I want to tell you two stories, both of them true, recent, and out of my own experience. They will illustrate the reason why, knowing you as well as I do, having baptized you and received you into the church, I cannot view without concern your growing extravagance, and the company into which it leads you, and the interests from which it tends to separate you.
"A few months ago a young man came to this city, and spent his first days here under my own roof. I have known his father for many years, an earnest, faithful man, who has denied himself for that boy, and prayed for him, and done everything that a father ought.
"I chance to remember a word which his father spoke to me a number of years ago, when the boy was a young lad, and was recovering from a sickness that made it seem possible he would need a change of climate. I happen to remember meeting his father, who told me of this, and how he was arranging in his own mind to change his business, to make any sacrifice, to move to the ends of the earth, if necessary, for that boy's sake.
"The boy is not a bad boy. But he had not been in my home an hour before he asked me for the address of a tailor, and when his new suit came,—a suit which I thought he might very well have waited to earn,—it was silk-lined throughout. I do not believe the suit which his father wears as he passes the plate in church every Sunday is silk-lined.
"I knew what the boy was to earn, and could estimate what he could afford, and I knew that he could not buy that suit out of his own earnings.
"I had a letter from his father a few days ago. Shall I read it to you? It is very short. It reads as follows:—
"'MY DEAR FRIEND: I hope you will never know how hard it is for me to write to you to say that you must not under any circumstances lend money to my dear boy.'
"And those last three words make it the more pathetic.