No one should go into debt when they first start out in life.
Debt is one of the worst things that can happen to a person. It is a slave position to be sick, but many young men who are barely out of their "teens" are already in debt.
He runs into a friend and says, "Look at this: I just got a new suit."
He seems to think of the clothes as gifts, which is often true. However, if he pays for them and then gets trusted again, he's making a habit that will keep him poor for the rest of his life.
Debt makes a man lose his sense of self-worth and almost hate himself.
This is called "working for a dead horse," because the person is grunting and groaning and working for something that he has already eaten or worn out. When it comes time to pay up, he has nothing to show for his money.
I don't talk about merchants who buy and sell on credit or people who buy on credit to make a profit from the purchase. The old Quaker told his farmer son, "John, don't ever let anyone trust you, but if they do, let it be for "manure," because that will help you pay them back."
Mr. Beecher told young men that if they could borrow a small amount to buy land in the country, they should do so. "If a young man will only go into debt for some land and then get married, these two things will keep him straight or nothing will," he says.
This may be safe up to a point, but you shouldn't go into debt for what you eat, drink, and wear. Some families make the stupid mistake of getting credit at "the stores," which means they often buy a lot of things they didn't need.
It's easy to say, "I've been trusted for sixty days, and if I don't pay back the debt, the creditor won't care." No group of people in the world remembers things as well as creditors. You will have to pay when the sixty days are up.
If you don't pay, you'll probably break your promise and start telling lies. You might come up with an excuse or go into debt somewhere else to pay it, but that will only get you in more trouble.
Horatio, the apprentice boy, was a young man who was pretty and lazy. "Horatio, have you ever seen a snail?" asked his boss. "I think I have," he said in a low voice. ""You must have met him then, because I know you never passed one," the boss said. "Your creditor will find you or catch up to you and say, "Now, my young friend, you promised to pay me, but you haven't. Give me your note.""
When you put a note on interest, it starts to work against you; "it's a dead horse." The creditor goes to bed at night and wakes up in the morning with more money than when he went to bed, because his interest has grown while he slept. On the other hand, you get poorer while you sleep because your interest keeps growing.
Money is kind of like fire in that it is a great servant but a terrible boss. When you can't get out of debt and interest keeps building up, it will keep you in the worst kind of slavery.
But put your money to work, and you'll have the most loyal servant in the world. It's not just for the eyes. There is nothing, living or not, that will work as hard as money that is earning interest and is safe. It works day and night and rain or shine.
In the "blue-law state" of Connecticut, where the old Puritans had laws so strict that a man was fined for kissing his wife on Sunday, it was once said that "they fined a man for kissing his wife on Sunday." Still, these wealthy old Puritans had thousands of dollars in interest, and on Saturday night, they were worth a certain amount. On Sunday, they would go to church and do everything a Christian should do.
When they woke up on Monday, they would have a lot more money than they did on Saturday night, because their money that was earning interest had worked hard for them all day Sunday, as the law says.
Don't let it hurt you; if you do, you won't be able to make money in life. The strange Virginian John Randolph once told Congress, "Mr. Speaker, I have found the philosopher's stone: pay as you go." This is the closest any alchemist has ever come to finding the philosopher's stone.
