ON GOING SURETY by H. W. Beecher

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 1, 1869

ON GOING SURETY.

By H. W. Beecher

THERE are certain moral and prudential considerations which should always be borne in mind in going surety for a friend. You should make up your mind how much property you have, and how much you are willing to give away, absolutely, for that friend whom you indorse. For no blunder can be worse than to indorse on the supposition that you will not have to pay. Never indorse without saying to yourself, “This may come round upon me. I may have to pay it; and, if it comes to that, I am able and willing.” Nine out of ten of the fatal mistakes made by bondsmen arise from taking the opposite course to this. They consider the act of indorsing a friend’s paper as a mere commercial form. “There is no risk. I shall not have it to pay. He is abundantly able to take care of his paper. I shall help him without harming myself, and he is a stingy man who will not do that.” This is the calculation on which a man binds himself to pay a friend’s debts in case the friend cannot pay them himself. But how do these things turn out? One need not go far to ascertain! Every village has an illustration. The borrower was more involved than you supposed, or, perhaps, than he himself knew, and his creditors closed on him and wound him up, and were overjoyed to find such a good name as yours on his paper. Or, the sanguine scheme on which he had ventured, which seemed sure of success, almost without possibility of failure, suddenly, like a loaded wagon, slipped off a wheel and upset into the dirt! Or, just as everything was at the point of success, your friend sickened and could not look after his affairs, some critical matter was neglected, or some dishonest person stepped in and crooked matters: your friend died, the estate went into executors’ hands for settlement, was badly managed, warped and crooked, and finally turned out insolvent. And what became of you? Why, you were surety for the full amount of what you are worth! In an hour you find yourself confronted with a debt that sweeps away your home, your farm, your little sum in the bank, and leaves you just where you began twenty-five years ago, with this difference, that then you had only yourself to provide for, and now you have a wife and eight children. Then you were twenty-five years old, and life was all before you, and now you are fifty years old, and life pretty much all behind you! You have given away your children’s bread. You have not saved your friend, but have ruined yourself! Perhaps your friend had settled on

his wife a small property. So much the better for her, if he had. Of course she will divide with you, since it was to save her husband, that you were ruined. But, if she will not, (and human nature is made up of shaky stuff,) and her children go to school, while yours stay at home; and if they live in a comfortable house, pleasantly furnished, while you are hiring a few rooms in the cheapest quarter of the town, then I suspect that you will chew the end of a great many bitter reflections.

When it is too late, you will be very wise. You will say to yourself, it may be, “A man is a fool who signs for any larger sum than he can conveniently pay.” Amen, say I!

“Before a man puts his name down on another man’s paper, he should ask himself, Am I willing to give this person as much money as I sign for?” Amen, say I!

“To sign a bond on the supposition that it is a mere form, and that you will have nothing to pay, is to put one’s head into a fool’s noose.” Amen, again, say I.

There is no harm in signing for a neighbor if you have the property; if you are able to pay the amount without harming your own household; and if you love the man for whom you sign enough to be willing to give him outright the sum covered by your indorsement. Otherwise, to go surety for a neighbor is a folly, a sin and a shame.—H. W. Beecher.