It is deplorable to think how many naturally noble young men and young women owe their downfall to the foolish idea that, unless they live in a certain style, they will be looked down upon, and will not be able to get on in the world. Dressing or living beyond one's means is nothing less than absolute dishonesty. If you are trying to do what you can not afford to do, you are living a lie. If you are wearing clothes that you can not afford, they are perpetual witnesses against you. They are labeled all over with falsehood. If your jewelry, your carriages, your furs, and your costly gowns tell me that you are rich, when you live in a poverty-stricken home, and when your mother is obliged to make all sorts of sacrifices to enable you to make this false display, you lie just as surely as you would if you should try to deceive me by your words. The consciousness of being well dressed and yet owing for it, of riding in carriages which one can not afford, of wearing jewelry and tailor-made suits which are beyond one's means, or of patronizing expensive hotels and restaurants which one can not by any stretch of imagination or sophistry afford, is destructive to self-respect, to truth and honesty, and to manhood and womanhood. You can not afford to wear lies on your body or eat lies at expensive cafes any more than you can afford to tell lies with your tongue. There is only one possible result upon character of falsehoods, whether acted or told, and that is perpetual deterioration and demoralization. No one can act a lie or live a lie without being dishonest. When a man sacrifices his honesty, he loses the mainspring of his character, and he can not be perfectly honest when he is lying by frequenting costly restaurants or hotels, by wearing expensive clothing, or by extravagant living in any of its varied expressions, when he can not afford it. There are a thousand ways of lying, but all lead to the same end. It does not matter whether you wear lies, tell lies, act lies, or live lies, your character is ruined all the same. There is no more demoralizing influence in modern life than the unnatural straining to seem other than we are. Nothing else so quickly lowers self-respect, takes the fine edge off honor, and blunts the conscience as the sense of being a sham, a gilded fraud, or an unreality. It cheapens standards, lowers ideals, saps ambition, and takes the spring and joy out of living. No man can make the most and the best of himself until he is absolutely honest with his own soul, and unfalteringly true to his highest ideals, and this is impossible while he is living a lie. One must have a strong, level head, indeed, to live in a great city without being dazzled or led away by the glitter and show, the false display, and the flaunting of wealth on every hand. It takes a well-poised mind and a steady, well-balanced character to cling to one's aim, to keep dead in earnest through it all, to keep plodding, and to remain true to one's ideals. It takes courage to live a simple, natural life in the midst of superficiality, or to be true to one's self in the midst of unreality, but in the final balancing of accounts it is the only thing that pays.—Success.