If you get to be a book-keeper in any counting-house or public institution, remember that you are in a position of trust and responsibility. When you make errors do not erase the error; draw faint red or black lines through it and write correct characters over the error. Do not hide your errors of any kind. Do not misstate anything in language or figures. Everybody makes errors at some time or other, but everybody does not admit and apologize for them. The honest man is he who _does_ admit and apologize, and does so without waiting to be detected. There have been of late some deplorable instances of betrayal of trust in our city. I may as well call it by its right name, stealing. The culprits are now suffering in prison the penalty for their crimes. While I am speaking to you there are men, young and _not_ young, in our city who are _now_ stealing, and who are falsifying their books in the vain hope that it may be kept secret; who are dreading the day when they will be caught; who cannot afford to take a holiday; who cannot afford to be sick, lest absence for a single day may disclose their guilt. What a horrible state of mind! They will go to their desks or their offices to-morrow morning, not knowing but it may be their last day in that place. And the day will come, most surely, when _you_ will be tempted as these wretched ones have been tempted. In what shape the temptation may come, or when, no human being knows. The suggestion will be made, that by the use of a little money you may make a good deal; that the venture is perfectly safe; some one tells you so, and points to this one or that one who has tried it and made money. It is only a little thing; you can’t lose much; you _may_ make enough to pay for the cost of your summer holiday, or for your cigar bill, or your beer bill; or you will be able to smoke better cigars or drink better beer, or buy a gold watch, or a diamond ring, or anything else; _you can’t lose much_. You have no money of your own, it is true, but what is needed will not be missed if you take it out of the drawer. Shall you do it? No! Let nothing induce you to take the first dollar not your own. It is the _first_ step that counts. But suppose you don’t care for this warning, or forget it. Suppose the time comes when you find that you _have_ taken something that was not yours, and that it is lost, and that you cannot repay it, what then? Why, go at once to your employer; tell him the whole story; keep back nothing; throw yourself upon his mercy, and ask forgiveness. Better now than later. You will assuredly be caught. There is no possibility of continuous concealment. Tell it now before you are detected, and, if you must be disgraced, the sooner the better.