MEANNESS by Mary Kyle Dallas

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 22, 1881

MEANNESS.

By Mary Kyle Dallas

ECONOMY is an excellent thing. That is, it is very comfortable to be able to say to one's self, "I will do without this, that, or the other luxury, rather than run the risk of being a beggar in my old age," or even to find it possible to live without what is usually deemed a necessity, rather than to run into debt. But exaggerated economy, in other words, meanness, is something which must render its possessor wretched, and something, too, which is often found in people who are too selfish to forbid themselves anything they desire. They covet rich food and fine dress, ease and idleness, but they begrudge to those who minister to their wants their well-earned price, and always forget that the "laborer is worthy of his hire."

From the lips of such people you hear nothing but complaints. Every one is over-reaching them. The dressmaker has sent in a frightful bill; the cook has no right to such wages; the abominable landlord thinks no rent too much for his house. It is impossible to get anything done without being cheated. In fine, they want all that people have to sell, and have within their souls a miserly desire to get it for nothing. Always accusing other people of their own vice, they salve their consciences, and when they do get something for nothing, fancy themselves happy. But it is only fancy. They can never know the pleasant warmth that fills the heart when a generous action has been done at its prompting. Never can they feel the pleasant independence that follows liberal and ungrudging payment of those to whose toil or trouble one is indebted.

Life is a constant battle to them, and many a spendthrift is happier than those who forget that they have no right to economize at the expense of other people, and that whoever wittingly takes the money of another to add to his own purse is at least at heart, a thief.—Mary Kyle Dallas.