od rule. "Keep a regular account of what you spend," is
another. "Before you buy anything, think whether you can afford it,"
is a third. But whatever rule we follow in regard to our expenditure,
let us see that it does not exceed our income. The words of Horace
Greeley, a great American writer and politician who had a large
experience of life, are not too strong: "Hunger, cold, rags, hard work,
contempt, suspicion, unjust reproach, are disagreeable, but debt is
infinitely worse than them all. Never run into debt! Avoid pecuniary
obligation as you would pestilence or famine. If you have but fifty
cents and can get no more a week, buy a peck of corn, parch it, and
live on it, rather than owe any man a dollar."

5. _We should resolutely set our face against gambling_.--Gambling is
one of the curses of our time. It is the endeavor to get money by
dispensing with labor, to make it without honestly working for it. It
entails widespread ruin and degradation. Its consequences are often of
the most appalling character. When the gambling spirit is once
aroused, like drunkenness, it becomes an overpowering appetite, which
the victim becomes almost powerless to resist. Gambling is in itself
evil, apart from its deadly effects. (_a_) It proposes to confer gain
without merit, and to reward those who do not deserve a reward, (_b_)
It proposes to benefit us while injuring our neighbor. "Benefit
received," says Herbert Spencer in his _Sociology_, referring to
gambling, "does not imply effort put forth; but the happiness of the
winner involves the misery of the loser. This kind of action is
therefore essentially anti-social, sears the sympathies, cultivates a
hard egoism, and produces general deterioration of character and
conduct." The young should specially guard against this vice, which
has been a rock upon which many a promising life has made disastrous
shipwreck.

[1] Sir Henry Taylor, _Notes from Life_.

[2] _Life Questions_, by M. J. Savage.

CHAPTER VI.

TIME.

"Time," it is said, "is money." So it is, without doubt. But to the
young man or young woman who is striving to make the most of himself or
herself time is more than money, it is character and usefulness. They
become great and good just as they learn how to make the best use of
their time. On the right employment of it depends what we are to be
now, and what we are to be hereafter, "We all complain," says the great
Roman philosopher S