The Ghosts, and Other LecturesIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Ghosts, and Other Lectures
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
Ainsworth R. Spofford gives the following facts about interest: "One
dollar loaned for one hundred years at six per cent., with the interest
collected annually and added to the principal, will amount to three
hundred and forty dollars. At eight per cent, it amounts to two thousand
two hundred and three dollars. At three per cent, it amounts only to
nineteen dollars and twenty-five cents. At ten per cent, it is thirteen
thousand eight hundred and nine dollars, or about seven hundred times
as much. At twelve per cent, it amounts to eighty-four thousand and
seventy-five dollars, or more than four thousand times as much. At
eighteen per cent, it amounts to fifteen million one hundred and
forty-five thousand and seven dollars. At twenty-four per cent, (which
we sometimes hear talked of) it reaches the enormous sum of two billion
five hundred and fifty-one million seven hundred and ninety-nine
thousand four hundred and four dollars."
One dollar at compound interest, at twenty-four per cent., for one
hundred years, would produce a sum equal to our national debt.
Interest eats night and day, and the more it eats the hungrier it grows.
The farmer in debt, lying awake at night, can, if he listens, hear it
gnaw. If he owes nothing, he can hear his corn grow. Get out of debt
as soon as you possibly can. You have supported idle avarice and lazy
economy long enough.
Above all let every farmer treat his wife and children with infinite
kindness. Give your sons and daughters every advantage within your
power. In the air of kindness they will grow about you like flowers.
They will fill your homes with sunshine and all your years with joy.
Do not try to rule by force. A blow from a parent leaves a scar on the
soul. I should feel ashamed to die surrounded by children I had whipped.
Think of feeling upon your dying lips the kiss of a child you had
struck.
See to it that your wife has every convenience. Make her life worth
living. Never allow her to become a servant. Wives, weary and worn,
mothers, wrinkled and bent before their time, fill homes with grief
and shame. If you are not able to hire help for your wives, help them
yourselves. See that they have the best utensils to work with.
Women cannot create things by magic. Have plenty of wood and coal--good
cellars and plenty in them. Have cisterns, so that you can have plenty
of rain water for washing.' Do not rely on a barrel and a board. When
the rain comes the board will be lost or the hoops will be off the
barrel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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