CHARACTER IS THE BEST CAPITAL.
By Geikie
THE saying that one can not be honest and live is as old as sin. You can not be dishonest and live, in any worthy or noble sense. To get a full purse and a dead conscience is a poor exchange. It does not pay, in the long run, to have God against you. Rely on it, all shams, hypocrisies, wrong-doings, and lies go to their father some day. It depends from whose mint your money comes whether it is better to have or to want it. Everywhere honesty walks on firm ground; dishonesty, among pitfalls. Character is the best capital in the end; the want of it brings contempt and commonly even worldly ruin. Honesty is a sworn foe to debt and spends no more than it earns; hardly all that. To owe is a millstone around many a young man's neck that drowns him in perdition after a time. Be manly enough to seem what you are, and while you by no means parade poverty, never hide it at the cost of uprightness. Make the very best appearance you can honestly, but stop there. Pay as you go, and you will save many a headache. Be content to begin life at the beginning and to wait, as others have done, till your income warrants indulgence before taking it. Ambitious, reckless commencements are the ruin of thousands, bringing anxiety, overwork, debt, draining business of capital, and living on creditors rather than gains. Young men nowadays too often15affect at the outset the style their fathers only reached after thrifty and patient years. They begin with the large end of the horn, and very often come out at the small one. Don't take Jonah's gourd for your pattern. Make it your moral.—Geikie.