life; and the growth of such qualities in a nation are the only true
marks of its real prosperity; not the infinite manufacture and sale of
cotton prints, toys, hardware, and crockery. The Bishop of Manchester,
when preaching at a harvest thanksgiving near Preston, referred to a
letter which he had received from a clergyman in the south of England,
who, after expressing his pleasure at the fact that the agricultural
labourers were receiving higher wages, lamented "that at present the
only result he could discover from their higher wages was that a great
deal _more beer_ was consumed. If this was the use we were making of
this prosperity, we could hardly call it a blessing for which we had a
right or ground to thank God. The true prosperity of the nation
consisted not so much in the fact that the nation was growing in
wealth--though wealth was a necessary attribute of prosperity--but that
it was growing in virtue; and that there was a more equable distribution
of comfort, contentment, and the things of this lower world."

In making the preceding observations we do not in the least advocate the
formation of miserly, penurious habits; for we hate the scrub, the
screw, the miser. All that we contend for is, that man should provide
for the future,--that they should provide during good times for the bad
times which almost invariably follow them,--that they should lay by a
store of savings as a breakwater against want, and make sure of a little
fund which may maintain them in old age, secure their self-respect, and
add to their personal comfort and social well-being. Thrift is not in
any way connected with avarice, usury, greed, or selfishness. It is, in
fact, the very reverse of these disgusting dispositions.

It means economy for the purpose of securing independence. Thrift
requires that money should be used and not abused--that it should be
honestly earned and economically employed--