The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1889-07-06
LIVING WITHIN OUR MEANS.
BY E. P. BOND.

/
full of warning and suggestion; but it is not
| to the far past that | would turn your Thoughts
to-day. Only the last week has put upon its
records history that we may profitably pause
to consider. Its lessons are of deep significance
and have a practical bearing upon all our
lives.
1t is the story of a man in the very prime OF
life, a man having wife and children, man
whose business ability had placed him in an
important position in an important bank in
the city of New York man who had won
the implicit confidence of the managers of the
bank, and was in the line of promotion to its
highest offices; a man of cultivated tastes, and
of fine social gifts A week ago we should
have said that this man was one of the favored
children of fortune to whom life promised all
| of its best gifts. And this was so. But to-day
he is shipwrecked. He is published to the
world as defaulter, and he is hiding from the
| officers of the law.
His yearly salary was 5000. This sum
proved not to be enough to meet his desires,
and instead of pruning and fitting his desires
to his income he allowed his desires free scope
apparently and in a few years appropriated to
his own use the funds of the bank to the
| amount of $50 900. For years he stood in his
| place the trusted cashier, while he knew in his
heart he was robber. We are not called
upon to sit in judgment upon the man. We
cannot measure his responsibility. We shall
never know what was left out of his training
that might have made him strong where he
proved to be weak, or what influences went to
the corrupting of his moral soundness. All
these hidden things of the mans life are
known only to Infinite wisdom, and will be
judged by Infinite justice. But the outward
course of the mans life and its terrible wreck
on the rock of extravaganza, that threaten so
many lives, lie open before us for our consider
alton. 1t is not happy theme, not pleasant
picture, but | would that language might be
given me to place before you an impression
of apb honor
sacrificed to elegant living and costly hospital
ity; of a husband turning to unutterable woe
the life of his wife of father oyershadowing
the lives of his children with cloud that no
ray of comfort can shine through. To-day,
in his Punishment from wife and children, in
his consciousness that he has betrayedthe con-
fdence reposed in him and so has weakened
the confidence of all men in all other men,
when he calls himself, as he must, by the
name of thief how like dust and ashes must
seem the things that have tempted him away
from the straight line of honorable living
How he must look with feeling of envy upon
the hard-working day-laborer, who, lacking
the elegancies and refinements of life, has yet
his honor to which all things may be added
Five thousand dollars did not prove to be
money enough to buy the clothing that his
tastes required for himself and family, to pro-
vide the elegant appointments of his house, to
meet the expenses of his club of which he was
popular member to furnish forth the feasts to
which he loved to invite his friends. And
since he had not money enough OF his own to
do all of these things, he secretly and with
great adroitnesS took other mems money. 1t
is very possible that he did not say to himself
that he was stealing, but called it borrowing 1t
would be great deal wiser to call things by
their right names Can we doubt that now,
in his hiding place. he is crying out in his
heart, "Why was there not some power at
hand to hold me back from ruin p
need
at forty years Of age that miraculous arm
will be stretched forth to save us from the
whirlwind of our own sowing. That cannot
be. Whatsoever we SOW, that must we also
reap. And the only power that can keep us
safe in the path of integrity, is the power OF
right principles Of action from our youth up
The stress of life increases as the years go by.
Our relations multiply, and the demands upon
us grow more and more, and to meet this stress
and these demands, our training must have
been begun long ego. Athletes are sometimes
known to postpone their training and make
a great squirt of effort when they set ont for
a prize and thus win the day but life in its
higher aspects does not come to success through
sudden and spasmodic efforts, but only by stea-
dy obedience to the known laws OF right. :.
This is not metaphysical but most practl-
cal question, to which ask your thought, one
that concerns us all from the eldest to the
Youngest this question of living within our
income. Whether the income be five thousand
year, as in the case we have considered, or at
the rate of five cents day, as may be the case
with some of our number, the problems and
perplexities are of the same nature, and differ
only in degree. suppose there are only few
incomes so large as not to require choice OF
expenditures. With these exceptions there is
always degree of elegance, grade of expen-
ditlIres lust beyond our own particular income,
and always tempting us beyond our depth,
and always testing the strength of character to
which we have attained. If our incomes are
ALWAYS of the same grade as our neighbors one
very important factor of our life problem
would be omitted, but it is very apt to chance
that our neighbor's income is greater than our
own. and that we have constantly before our
eyes, and educating our taste for greater line
ness and costlness, his standards OF lltes ne
cessties. There is always possibility that
our neighbor's coat or gown may make the
stuff of our own garment look coarse ana
hOmely and that our neighborS child need
not choose whether his allowance be appropri-
ated to bananas or tennis balls. 1t is this in
equality of income that introduces the element
of moral courage into our problem, and, it may
be, puts a constant strain upon our honor
For it does require moral courage to acknowl-
edge the limitations of our income, and hold
ourselves strictly to them.
If we have fixed income whether it be five
cents day, or five thousand year, then the
issue becomes direct one between desire and
honor. We have either to hit our desires abSo-
lutely to our income training ourselves to re-
sist temptation to go beyond this limit, or we
sacrifice our honor and become either borrow
ers or thieves 1t seems to me of very great
importance that young people do not allow
themselves to be borrowers that they train
themselves steadfastly to go without the pleas
ures or indulgences that they can gratify only
by borrowing the money for them. Because
if to-day's desire is uncontrolled, to-morroT's S
will be stronger; and at forty years of age,
when desire is perhaps at its strongest, there
will be no power of resistance against Its clam
orous demands.
Along with this training of controlled desire,
there needs to be another training of the ideals
of happiness and education of the sense OF
values, if | may so express 1t. The college
course has failed of one of its finest purposes If
it send not forth a company OF young people
to whom it has revealed the truth that happl-
ness is not from without, but from within. If
the college course has made more necessary,
instead of less, the elegant and costly appoint
mentS of living If it has stimulated the feeling
that the tides of happiness rise and fall with
the costliness of our carpets and upholstery,
and the fineness of china and silver, with the
richness and variety of our dress, then it has
missed its noblest aim. For. to my mind, the
end of college training is to put the student in
possession of himself, to open the eyes of his
mind and soul to the real things of life-the
imperishable joys of the intellect and heart. /
do not mean to be understood as saying that
there is no charm nor delight in costly furnish
ings. know there is and that they appeal
legitimately to our love of beauty. But
would emphasize this, that if we have not
learned how to be sweet-spirited and happy
upon an ingram carpet then the velvet carpet,
while it will be softer to our feet, will in no
wise beautify our lives; that if our houses be
not first furnished with fine, honorable man.
hood, with gentle, honorable womanhood,
then nothing that money can buy to put into
them will make up for the poverty of their
furnishing / would emphasize this, that if
the man dignity not the coat, if the woman
grace not her gown, then broadcloth and satin
fail to give chiefest charm that dress of man or
woman can have.