"The borrower till he hath received will kiss a man's hand; and for his neighbour's money he will speak submissly; but, when he should repay, he will prolong the time, and return words of grief, and complain of the time. If he prevail he shall hardly receive the half, and he will count as if he had found it; if not, he hath deprived him of his money, and he hath gotten him an enemy without cause: he payeth him with cursings and railings." The safest rule is for a man to lend only so much as he can afford to lose, and to lose cheerfully. Then he may comply with the Scripture rule and lend, hoping for nothing again.

"

The Society of Friends have generally interpreted the Sermon on the Mount literally; but in practice they must have felt great difficulty. A young friend on his marriage requested a loan from one of the Gurneys. The answer was: "I have ordered Barclay and Co. to pay £100 on thy account. I quite disapprove of thy borrowing money, either of me or of anybody else, either now or henceforward." Constantly, says his son, was he found helping, as an individual, parties to whom he refused accommodation as a banker.

Some refuse to lend because they doubt whether they

Record at Stratford against Philip Rogers to recover a debt of £1 15s. 10d. At different times between March and the end of May in that year, Shakespeare had sold to Rogers as much malt as amounted to the value of I 19s. 10d.; and he had also, on June 25th, "lent him two shillings:" of all this debt Rogers had paid him only six shillings; hence the action.-Dyce, i. 89.

* Ecclus. xxix. 5, 6.

will receive back as much again. But it is this very doubt that makes the loan pleasing in God's sight, and constitutes it a trial of faith and love; so that it is a perversity which converts the argument for lending into an argument for withholding.

66

There is one case in which there can be no doubt : we ought never to lend that which is not our own. I had been chosen treasurer," said Lavater, "of a certain charitable institution, and had received the funds subscribed for its conduct, when a friend came in great distress and begged me to advance him a sum of money to save him from bankruptcy. 'You should have it at

once, but I have no such sum.' 'You have the charity fund in your power; lend me what I need from that. Long before the day comes on which you must pay it over, I shall be able to replace it, and you will save me and mine from ruin.' At last I reluctantly consented. His hopes, as I had foreseen, were disappointed: he could not repay me.'

As has been already hinted, economy should embrace other things besides money. There are still more precious things which call for judicious management. Of property, the first and most necessary part is that which is best and chiefest-AND THIS IS MAN.† We must make provision for the soul as well as for the body, for eternity as well as for time. We read in history of a Roman soldier who, at the plunder of an Eastern city, found a bag full of pearls. The bag was made of shining, polished leather, therefore he counted it a great prize;

*

"Life of Wilberforce," i. 85.

† Arist. Econ., c. v.

as for the pearls, he threw them all away.

knew not what they were, so he This is exactly what men do with

higher things they take care of the body, the shining leather bag; but as for the soul, the pearl, they throw it quite away.

CHAPTER XIII.

EDUCATION.

SOMETHING has already been said on the subject of Education in the chapters on parents.* This section is less specially for them, and is equally intended for tutors, governesses, and teachers; and it deals with the question in a more systematic way.

Trebonius, the teacher of Luther, had a habit which will preserve his name for evermore. When he came into the schoolroom he took off his hat and bowed to the scholars a great condescension in those pedantic times. "There are," said he, "among these youths some whom God will one day raise to the ranks of burgomasters, chancellors, doctors, and magistrates." †

This reverence for the potential development of children is a prime qualification in those who have the care of youth. The parents, who can imagine what their children may become in the future, must indeed be solemnized. There is such a capacity for change. The same person photographed as an infant, as a youth, as an old man, appears not one but three: the portraits are

* Chaps. v. and vi.

+ D'Aubigné's "History of the Reformation," i. 153.

as different as possible; yet these physical changes are not greater than the intellectual and moral differences of infancy and old age.

Although such an imagination be useful, yet foreknowledge would be undesirable both for parents and children. It would paralyse all education and all exertion; and it would be a curse and not a blessing. Suppose Charles I. of England, when he received a golden key, and opened all the chambers of a Spanish palace, had known that on some future day he would be a prisoner among his own people; or suppose when he mounted his ancestral throne, he had foreseen that he would be driven from it, and beheaded by usurping subjects, how would the future bitterness have soured the present joy!

But while God mercifully withholds foreknowledge, his Providence is abundantly suggestive of the solemn possibilities of the future, and thus gives a most powerful stimulus to parents to train up their children in the fear of God, in the love of good, and in the hatred of evil. The fact that theatrical people visit the schools about Drury Lane for children to be made into angels, might suggest to teachers that they have the high mission of preparing the little ones both for earth and heaven.

Education is the art of training childhood into manhood, and of developing all its nascent faculties and dispositions wisely, not by any forced process, but naturally, and gently, and holily. It must always be one of the greatest political questions, and one of the most serviceable undertakings to the State, because children. are the citizens that are to be, and such as we make