In close relation to contentment stand two other great remedies against sorrow. The first is a wise Frugality. This goes hand in hand, indeed, only with honest acquisition; what is unjustly acquired is seldom wisely saved, and, according to a true proverb, rarely descends to the third heir. In such cases, therefore, frugality is of no use. Frugality can also, in other cases, be actually harmful. Excessive calculation, and anxiety extending to the smallest minutiæ of expenditure, leads to needless care, and almost as many people come to spiritual ruin through this as through heedless improvidence. And so, the blessing (or curse) that rests on the actions of men has a manifest relation to the observance of the moral commandments. If it were not so, it would be truly enigmatical how so many thousands of honest men get through life without property or sure income. They themselves would be least of all in a position to explain it. There is one more remedy against financial anxiety, and that, strange to say, is systematic Giving. This the ancient prophets of Israel already knew; in our day it has lately assumed prominence again, especially through George Müller and Spurgeon. Whether the amount to be laid aside for this purpose should be the tenth part of one’s income would seem a matter of complete indifference; but a definite part it must be; and it should never be allowed to remain a matter of mere intentions, which the natural avarice of men will always find ways of evading. In this way a man oftentimes acquires his first inclination toward caring for his poor fellow-men, while otherwise they appear to him only too often as troublesome claimants for something that rightly belongs to himself alone or that he has need of for himself and for his own. But when a man possesses such a fund, no longer belonging to himself, then he looks around more freely to see where he may put the money to good use; then at times he even anticipates the appeal of the tongue when he sees the mute appeal of the eye. This single habit, universally adopted, would help solve the social question more than all the talking and scribbling with which the world now resounds, for the most part vainly. A stoical remedy we will finally name, because, when all the others have first been tried, in most cases it is no longer necessary. It consists in picturing to ourselves the worst that could happen. And, in fact, this does afford a certain consolation, at least for him who is able to make use of it; others, on the contrary, can be led by this path, and without any need for it, to despair.