Page:Way to wealth (1).pdf/14

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is risked, so much is suffered? It cannot promote health, nor ease pain; it makes no increase of merit in the person, it creates envy, it hastens misfortune.

But what madness must: it be to run in debt for these superfluities? We are offered, by the terms of this sale, six months credit; and that, "perhaps, has induced some of us to. attend it, because we cannot spare the ready money, and hope now to be fine without it. But, ah I think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor; you will be in fear when you speak to him; you will make poor, pitiful, sneaking excuses, and, by degrees, come to lose your veracity, and sink into base, downright lying; for, "The second vice is lying, the first is running in debt, as Poor Richard says; and again, to the same purpose, "Lying rides upon Debt’s back whereas a freeborn Englishman ought not to be ashamed nor

afraid to see or speak to any man living. But poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue. "It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright," What would you think of that

prince,