The economical man has in his savings a balance wheel whose momentum carries him by hard places. His position is independent and his prosperity is permanent. For it depends not on the fortunes of the day, which are uncertain and variable; but on the fixed habits and principles of a life-time, which are changeless and reliable. THE TEMPTATION. +Living beyond one's income: running in debt.+--Income is limited; while the things we would like to have are infinite. We must draw the line somewhere. Duty says, draw it well inside of income. Temptation says, draw it at income, or a trifle outside of income. Yield to this temptation, and our earnings are gone before we know it, and debt stares us in the face. Debts are easy to contract, but hard to pay. The debt must be paid sometime with accumulated interest. And when the day of reckoning comes it invariably costs more inconvenience and trouble to pay it than it would have cost to have gone without the thing for the sake of which we ran in debt. Never, on any account, get in debt. Never spend your whole income. These are rules we are constantly tempted to break. But the man who yields to this temptation is on the high road to financial ruin. THE VICE OF DEFECT. +Wastefulness.+--The wasteful man buys things he does not need; spends his money as fast as he can get it; lives beyond his means; throws things away which are capable of further service; runs in debt; and is forever behindhand. He lives from hand to mouth; is dependent upon his neighbors for things which with a little economy he might own himself; makes no provision for the future, and when sickness or old age comes upon him, he is without resources. THE VICE OF EXCESS. +Miserliness.+--Economy saves for the sake of future expenditure. Miserliness saves for the sake of saving. The spendthrift sacrifices the future to present enjoyment. The miser sacrifices present enjoyment to an imaginary future which never comes; and so misses enjoyment altogether. The prudent man harmonizes present with future enjoyment, and so lives a life of constant enjoyment. The spendthrift spends recklessly, regardless of consequences. The miser hoards anxiously, despising the present. The man of prudence and economy spends liberally for present needs, and saves only as a means to more judicious and lasting expenditure. The miser is as much the slave of his money as is the spendthrift the slave of his indulgences. Economy escapes both forms of slavery and maintains its freedom by making both spending and saving tributary to the true interests of the self. THE PENALTY.