"THERE is one honest man in the world, I am happy to say," remarkeda rich merchant, named Petron, to a friend who happened to call inupon him.
"Is there, indeed! I am glad to find you have made a discovery ofthe fact. Who is the individual entitled to the honourabledistinction?"
"You know Moale, the tailor?"
"Yes. Poor fellow! he's been under the weather for a long time."
"I know. But he's an honest man for all that."
"I never doubted his being honest, Mr. Petron."
"I have reason to know that he is. But I once thought differently.When he was broken up in business some years ago, he owed me alittle bill, which I tried to get out of him as hard as any one everdid try for his own. But I dunned and dunned him until weary, andthen, giving him up as a bad case, passed the trifle that he owed meto account of profit and loss. He has crossed my path a few timessince; but, as I didn't feel toward him as I could wish to feeltoward all men, I treated him with marked coldness. I am sorry forhaving done so, for it now appears that I judged him too severely.This morning he called in of his own free will, and paid me down theold account. He didn't say any thing about interest, nor did I,though I am entitled to, and ought to have received it. But, as longas he came forward of his own accord and settled his bill, after Ihad given up all hope of ever receiving it, I thought I might affordto be a little generous and not say any thing about the interest;and so I gave him a receipt in full. Didn't I do right?"
"In what respect?" asked the friend.
"In forgiving him the interest, which I might have claimed as wellas not, and which he would, no doubt, have paid down, or brought meat some future time."
"Oh, yes. You were right to forgive the interest," returned thefriend, but in a tone and with a manner that struck the merchant asrather singular. "No man should ever take interest on money due froman unfortunate debtor."
"Indeed! Why not?" Mr. Petron looked surprised. "Is not money alwaysworth its interest?"
"So it is said. But the poor debtor has no money upon which to makean interest. He begins the world again with nothing but his abilityto work; and, if saddled with an old debt--principal andinterest--his case is hopeless. Suppose he owes ten thousanddollars, and, after struggling hard for three or four years, getsinto a position that will enable him to pay off a thousand dollars ayear. There is some chance for him to get out of debt in ten years.But suppose interest has been accumulating at the rate of some sixhundred dollars a year. His debt, instead of being ten thousand,will have increased to over twelve thousand dollars by the time heis in a condition to begin to pay off any thing; and then, insteadof being able to reduce the amount a thousand dollars a year, hewill have to let six hundred go for the annual interest on theoriginal debt. Four years would have to elapse before, under thissystem, he would get his debt down to where it was when he wasbroken up in business. Thus, at the end of eight years' hardstruggling, he would not, really, have advanced a step out of hisdifficulties. A debt of ten thousand dollars would still be hangingover him. And if, persevering to the end, he should go on paying theinterest regularly and reducing the principal, some twenty-fiveyears of his life would be spent in getting free from debt, whenlittle over half that time would have been required, if hiscreditors had, acting from the commonest dictates of humanity,voluntarily released the interest."
"That is a new view of the case, I must confess--at least new tome," said Mr. Petron.
"It is the humane view of the case. But, looking to interest alone,it is the best view for every creditor to take. Many a man who, witha little effort, might have cancelled, in time, the principal of adebt unfortunately standing against him, becomes disheartened atseeing it daily growing larger through the accumulation of interest,and gives up in despair. The desire to be free from debt spurs manya man into effort. But make the difficulties in his way so large asto appear insurmountable, and he will fold his hands in helplessinactivity. Thousands of dollars are lost every year in consequenceof creditors grasping after too much, and breaking down the hope andenergy of the debtors."
"Perhaps you are right," said Mr. Petron;--"that view of the casenever presented itself to my mind. I don't suppose, however, theinterest on fifty dollars would have broken down Moale."
"There is no telling. It is the last pound, you know, that breaksthe camel's back. Five years have passed since his day ofmisfortune. Fifteen dollars for interest are therefore due. I havemy doubts if he could have paid you sixty-five dollars now. Indeed,I am sure he could not. And the thought of that as a new debt, forwhich he had received no benefit whatever, would, it is more thanprobable, have produced a discouraged state of mind, and made himresolve not to pay you any thing at all."
"But that wouldn't have been honest," said the merchant.
"Perhaps not, strictly speaking. To be dishonest is from a setpurpose to defraud; to take from another what belongs to him; or towithhold from another, when ability exists to pay, what is justlyhis due. You would hardly have placed Moale in either of thesepositions, if, from the pressure of the circumstances surroundinghim as a poor man and in debt, he had failed to be as active,industrious, and prudent as he would otherwise have been. We are allapt to require too much of the poor debtor, and to have too littlesympathy with him. Let the hope of improving your owncondition--which is the mainspring of all your businessoperations--be taken away, and instead, let there be only the desireto pay off old debts through great labour and self-denial, that mustcontinue for years, and imagine how differently you would think andfeel from what you do now. Nay, more; let the debt be owed to thosewho are worth their thousands and tens of a thousands, and who arein the enjoyment of every luxury and comfort they could desire,while you go on paying them what you owe, by over-exertion and thedenial to yourself and family of all those little luxuries andrecreations which both so much need, and then say how deeply dyedwould be that dishonesty which would cause you, in a moment ofdarker and deeper discouragement than usual, to throw the crushingweight from your shoulders, and resolve to bear it no longer? Youmust leave a man some hope in life if you would keep him active andindustrious in his sphere."
Mr. Petron said nothing in reply to this; but he looked sober. Hisfriend soon after left.
The merchant, as the reader may infer from his own acknowledgment,was one of those men whose tendency to regard only their owninterests has become so confirmed a habit, that they can see nothingbeyond the narrow circle of self. Upon debtors he had never lookedwith a particle of sympathy; and had, in all cases, exacted his ownas rigidly as if his debtor had not been a creature of human wantsand feelings. What had just been said, however, awakened a newthought in his mind; and, as he reflected upon the subject, he sawthat there was some reason in what had been said, and felt halfashamed of his allusion to the interest of the tailor's fifty-dollardebt.
Not long after, a person came into his store, and from some causementioned the name of Moale.
"He's an honest man--that I am ready to say of him," remarked Mr.Petron.
"Honest, but very poor," was replied.
"He's doing well now, I believe," said the merchant.
"He's managing to keep soul and body together, and hardly that."
"He's paying off his old debts."
"I know he is; but I blame him for injuring his health and wronginghis family, in order to pay a few hundred dollars to men a thousandtimes better off in the world than he is. He brought me twentydollars on an old debt yesterday, but I wouldn't touch it. Hismisfortunes had long ago cancelled the obligation in my eyes. Godforbid! that with enough to spare, I should take the bread out ofthe mouths of a poor man's children."
"Is he so very poor?" asked Mr. Petron, surprised and rebuked atwhat he heard.
"He has a family of six children to feed, clothe, and educate; andhe has it to do by his unassisted labour. Since he was broken up inbusiness some years ago, he has had great difficulties to contendwith, and only by pinching himself and family, and depriving both ofnearly every comfort, has he been able to reduce the old claims thathave been standing against him. But he has shortened his own lifeten years thereby, and has deprived his children of the benefits ofeducation, except in an extremely limited degree--wrongs that areirreparable. I honour his stern integrity of character, but thinkthat he has carried his ideas of honesty too far. God gave him thesechildren, and they have claims upon him for earthly comforts andblessings to the extent of his ability to provide. His misfortuneshe could not prevent, and they were sent as much for thechastisement of those who lost by him as they were for his own. If,subsequently, his greatest exertion was not sufficient to providemore than ordinary comforts for the family still dependent upon him,his first duty was to see that they did not want. If he could notpay his old debts without injury to his health or wrong to hisfamily, he was under no obligation to pay them; for it is clear,that no claims upon us are so imperative as to require us to wrongothers in order to satisfy them."
Here was another new doctrine for the ears of the merchant--doctrinestrange, as well as new. He did not feel quite so comfortable asbefore about the recovered debt of fifty dollars. The money stilllay upon his desk. He had not yet entered it upon his cash-book, andhe felt now less inclined to do so than ever. The claims ofhumanity, in the abstract, pressed themselves upon him forconsideration, and he saw that they were not to be lightly thrustaside.
In order to pay the fifty dollars, which had been long due to themerchant, Mr. Moale had, as alleged, denied himself and family atevery point, and overworked himself to a degree seriously injuriousto his health; but his heart felt lighter after the sense ofobligation was removed.
There was little at home, however, to make him feel cheerful. Hiswife, not feeling able to hire a domestic, was worn down with thecare and labour of her large family; the children were, as anecessary consequence, neglected both in minds and bodies. Alas!there was no sunshine in the poor man's dwelling.
"Well, Alice," said Mr. Moale, as his wife came and stood by theboard upon which he sat at work, holding her babe in her arms, "Ihave paid off another debt, thank heaven?"
"Whose?"
"Petron's. He believed me a rogue and treated me as such. I hope hethinks differently now."
"I wish all men were as honest in their intentions as you are."
"So do I, Alice. The world would be a much better one than it is, Iam thinking."
"And yet, William," said his wife, "I sometimes think we do wrong tosacrifice so much to get out of debt. Our children"--
"Alice," spoke up the tailor, quickly, "I would almost sell my bodyinto slavery to get free from debt. When I think of what I stillowe, I feel as if I would suffocate."
"I know how badly you feel about it, William; but your heart ishonest, and should not that reflection bear you up?"
"What is an honest heart without an honest hand, Alice?" replied thetailor, bending still to his work.
"The honest heart is the main thing, William; God looks at that. Manjudges only of the action, but God sees the heart and its purposes."
"But what is the purpose without the act?"
"It is all that is required, where no ability to act is given.William, God does not demand of any one impossibilities."
"Though man often does," said the tailor, bitterly.
There was a pause, broken, at length, by the wife, who said--"Andhave you really determined to put John and Henry out to trades? Theyare so young."
"I know they are, Alice; too young to leave home. But"--
The tailor's voice became unsteady; he broke off in the middle ofthe sentence.
"Necessity requires it to be done," he said, recovering himself;"and it is of no avail to give way to unmanly weakness. But for thisold debt, we might have been comfortable enough, and able to keepour children around us until they were of a more fitting age to gofrom under their parents' roof. Oh, what a curse is debt!"
"There is more yet to pay?"
"Yes, several hundreds of dollars; but if I fail as I have for ayear past, I will break down before I get through."
"Let us think of our family, William; they have the first claim uponus. Those to whom money is owed are better off than we are; theystand in no need of it."
"But is it not justly due, Alice?" inquired the tailor, in arebuking voice.
"No more justly due than is food, and raiment, and a home to ourchildren," replied the tailor's wife, with more than her usualdecision of tone. "God has given us these children, and he willrequire an account of the souls committed to our charge. Is not ahuman soul of more importance than dollars? A few years, and it willbe out of our power to do our children good; they will grow up, andbear for ever the marks of neglect and wrong."
"Alice! Alice! for heaven's sake, do not talk in this way!"exclaimed the tailor, much disturbed.
"William," said the wife, "I am a mother, and a mother's heart canfeel right; nature tells me that it is wrong for us to thrust outour children before they are old enough to go into the world. Let uskeep them home longer."
"We cannot, and pay off this debt."
"Then let the debt go unpaid for the present. Those to whom it isowed can receive no harm from waiting; but our children will"--
Just then a man brought in a letter, and, handing it to the tailor,withdrew. On breaking the seal, Mr. Moale found that it containedfifty dollars, and read as follows:--
"SIR--Upon reflection, I feel that I ought not to receive from youthe money that was due to me when you became unfortunate some yearsago. I understand that you have a large family, that your health isnot very good, and that you are depriving the one of comforts, andinjuring the other, in endeavouring to pay off your old debts. Tocancel these obligations would be all right--nay, your duty--if youcould do so without neglecting higher and plainer duties. But youcannot do this, and I cannot receive the money you paid me thismorning. Take it back, and let it be expended in making your familymore comfortable. I have enough, and more than enough for all mywants, and I will not deprive you of a sum that must be important,while to me it is of little consequence either as gained or lost.
EDWARD PETRON."
The letter dropped from the tailor's hand; he was overcome withemotion. His wife, when she understood its purport, burst intotears.
The merchant's sleep was sweeter that night than it had been forsome time, and so was the sleep of the poor debtor.
The next day Mr. Moale called to see Mr. Petron, to whom, at theinstance of the latter, he gave a full detail of his actualcircumstances. The merchant was touched by his story, and promptedby true benevolence to aid him in his struggles. He saw most of thetailor's old creditors, and induced those who had not been paid infull to voluntarily relinquish their claims, and some of those whohad received money since the poor man's misfortunes, to restore itas belonging of right to his family. There was not one of thesecreditors who did not feel happier by their act of generosity; andno one can doubt that both the tailor and his family were alsohappier. John and Henry were not compelled to leave their home untilthey were older and better prepared to endure the privations thatusually attend the boy's first entrance into the world; and help forthe mother in her arduous duties could now be afforded.
No one doubts that the creditor, whose money is not paid to him, hasrights. But too few think of the rights of the poor debtor, whosinks into obscurity, and often privations, while his heart isoppressed with a sense of obligations utterly beyond his power tocancel.
THE END.
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