ed going into debt, borrowing
money, keeping no itemized account of daily expenditures, and buying on
the instalment plan. That great English preacher Spurgeon said that
debt, dirt, and the devil made up the trinity of evil. And debt can
discount the devil at any time for possibilities of present personal
torment. The temptations to go into debt are increasing rapidly. On
every hand in the cities one may read such advertisements as "We Trust
You," "Your Credit is Good With Us," and with these statements come
offers of clothing, furniture, and what not "on easy payments." But as
the Irishman remarked after an experience with the instalment purchase of
furniture: "Onaisy payments they sure are." As a matter of fact, the
easy payments take all the ease and comfort out of life--they are easy
only for the man who receives them.

Beware of the delusions of buying on the instalment plan. There are
thousands of poor families in this country who buy organs and sets of
books and encyclopedias, lightning rods, farming implements, and all
sorts of things which they might get along without, because they can pay
for them a little at a time. In this way, they keep themselves poor.
They are always pinching, sacrificing, to save up for the agent when he
comes around to collect.

All through the South there are poor homes of both colored and white
families, where there are not sufficient cooking utensils and knives,
forks, and spoons to enable the members to eat with comfort, and yet you
will find expensive things in their homes which they have bought on the
instalment plan, and which keep them poor for years trying to pay for
them.

As far as borrowing money is concerned the bitter experience of countless
men and women is crystallized in that old saying: "He that goes a
borrowing goes a sorrowing." There is a world of safety for the man who
follows Shakespeare's advice: "Neither a borrower nor a lender be."

It is sometimes said flippantly that "poverty is no disgrace but it's
mighty uncomfortable." And yet poverty is often a real disgrace. People
born to poverty may rise above it. People who have poverty thrust upon
them may overcome it. In this great land of abundance and opportunity
poverty is in most cases a disgrace and a reproach.

Dr. Johnson said to Boswell, "I admonish you avoid poverty, the
temptation and worry it breeds." There is something humiliating in being
poor. The very consciousness that we have _no