permit no man to suffer by your neglect.[1] Do not detain the laborer's wages.[2] Do not compel him to seek and plead for what justly belongs to him, that he may not have reason to say that it was more difficult to obtain his wages than to earn them. If you have the duties of executor to fulfil, beware of defrauding departed souls of help due them, lest their expiation may be prolonged because of a neglect for which you must some day heavily atone. Pay your dependants regularly, and let your accounts be carefully kept, that they may give rise to no disputes or claims after your death. Do not wholly leave to those who survive you the execution of your last wishes, but fulfil them yourself as far as you are able; for if you are careless of your own affairs, how can you expect others to be more diligent?
Make it a point of honor to owe no man, and you will thus enjoy peaceful slumbers, a quiet conscience, a contented life, and a happy death. The means of acquiring these precious results is to control your desires and appetites and to govern your expenditure by your income, not by your caprices. Our debts proceed from our ill-regulated, uncontrolled desires more than from our necessities, and consequently moderation is more profitable than the largest revenues. Let us be convinced that the only real riches, the only real treasures, are those which the Apostle bids us seek when he tells us to fly covetousness and pursue justice, godliness, faith, charity, patience, and mildness, for godliness with con-
