it is found, too late, that, by exceeding present income, we have
destroyed both the present and the future, we have created wants which
the future income will find a difficulty in supplying, having in
addition its own new ones to provide for.

It may indeed in a few, a very few, cases be necessary, in others
expedient, to forestall that money which we have every certainty of
presently possessing; but unless the expenditure relates to particulars
coming under the term of "daily bread," it appears to me decided
dishonesty to lay out an uncertain future income. Even if it should
become ours, have we not acted in direct contradiction to the revealed
will of God concerning us? The station of life in which God has placed
us depends very much on the expenditure within our power; and if we
double that, do we not in fact choose wilfully for ourselves a different
position from that which he has appointed, and withdraw from under the
guiding hand of his providence? Let us not hope that even temporal
success will be allowed to result from such acts of disobedience.

What a high value does it stamp on the virtue of economy, when we thus
consider it as one of the means towards enabling us to submit ourselves
to the will of God!

I cannot close a letter to a woman on the subject of economy without
referring to the subject of dress. Though your strongest temptations to
extravagance may be those of a generous, warm heart, I have no doubt
that you are also, though in an inferior degree, tempted by the desire
to improve your personal appearance by the powerful aid of dress. It
ought not to be otherwise; you should not be indifferent to a very
important means of pleasing. Your natural beauty would be unavailing
unless you devoted both time and care to its preservation and adornment.