C. H. Spurgeon writing as John Ploughman
From John Ploughmans Talk
My motto is, pay as you go, and keep from small scores Short reckonings are soon cleared. Pay what you owe and what you're worth you'll know. Let the clock tick but no "tick" for me. Better go to bed without your sup per than get up in debt. Sins and debts are always more than we think them to be. Little by little a man gets over head and ears. It is the petty expenses that empty the purse. Money rolls away easily. Tom Thriftless buys what he does not want because it is a great bargain, and so is soon brought to sell what he does want, and find it a very little bargain. He cannot say "No" to his friend who wants him to be security; he gives grand dinners, makes many holidays, keeps a fat table, lets his wife dress fine, and by-and-by he is quite surprised to find that quarter-days come round so very fast, and that creditors bark so loud. He has sowed his money in the fields of thoughtlessness, and now he wonders that he has to reap the harvest of poverty. Still he hopes for something to turn up to help him out of difficulty, and so muddles himself into more troubles, forgetting that hope and expectation are a fool's income. Being hard up, he goes to market with empty pockets, and buys at whatever prices tradesmen like to charge him, and so he pays more than double and gets deeper and deeper into the mire. This leads him to scheming, and trying little tricks and mean dodges, for it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright. This is sure not to answer. Schemes are like spiders' webs, which never catch anything better than flies, and are soon swept away. As well attempt to mend your shoes with brown paper, or stop a broken window with a sheet of ice, as try to patch up a falling business with maneuvering and scheming. When the schemer is found out, he is like a dog in church, which everybody is after, and like a barrel of powder, which nobody wants for a neighbor.
They say poverty is a sixth sense, and it had need be, for many debtors seem to have lost the other five, or were born without common sense. They appear to fancy that you not only make debts, but pay them by borrowing. A man pays Peter with what he has borrowed of Paul, and thinks he is getting out of his difficulties. He is only putting one foot into the mud to pull his other foot out. It is hard to shave an egg, or pull hairs out of a bald pate, but they are both easier than paying debts out of an empty pocket. Samson was a strong man, but he could not pay debts without money. He is a fool who thinks he can do it by scheming. Jews and Gentiles, when they lend money, generally pluck the geese as long as they have any feathers. A man must cut down his outgoings and save his incomings if he wants to clear himself; you cannot spend your penny and pay debts with it too. Stint the kitchen if the purse is bare. Do not believe in any way of wiping out debts except by paying hard cash. Promises make debts, and debts make promises, but promises never pay debts. Promising is one thing, and performing is quite another. A good man's word should be as binding as an oath. He should never promise to pay unless he has a clear prospect of doing so in due time. Those who stave off payment by false promises, deserve no mercy. It is all very well to say "I'm very sorry," but—
A hundred years of regret
Pay not a farthing of debt.
Now I'm afraid all this sound advice might as well have been given to my master's cocks and hens as to those who have got into the way of spending what is not their own. Advice to such people goes in at one ear and out at the other; well, those who will not listen will have to feel, and those who refuse cheap advice will have to buy dear repentance. To young people beginning life, a word may be worth a world
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