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The old miser said to his sons:
“Get money; get it honestly if you can, but get money:” 

This advice was not only atrociously wicked, but it
was the very essence of stupidity: It was as much as
to say, “if you find it difficult to obtain money honestly,
you can easily get it dishonestly……..
So get it in that way.” 

Poor fool! Not to know that the most difficult thing in
life is to make money dishonestly! Not to know that
our prisons are full of men who attempted to follow
this advice; not to understand that no man can be
dishonest, without soon being found out, and that
when his lack of principle is discovered, nearly every
avenue to success is closed against him forever. 

The public very properly shun all whose integrity is
doubted. No matter how polite and pleasant and
accommodating a man may be, none of us dare to
deal with him if we suspect “false weights and
measures.”
Strict honesty, not only lies at the foundation of all
success in life (financially), but in every other respect. 

Uncompromising integrity of character is invaluable.
It secures to its possessor a peace and joy which
cannot be attained without it, which no amount of
money, or houses and lands can purchase.
A man who is known to be strictly honest, may be
ever so poor, but he has the purses of all the comm-
unity at his disposal—for all know that if he promises
to return what he borrows, he will never disappoint
them. 

As a mere matter of selfishness, therefore, if a man
had no higher motive for being honest, all will find that
the maxim of Dr. Franklin can never fail to be true,
that “honesty is the best policy.” 

To get rich, is not always equivalent to being success-
ful. “There are many rich poor men,” while there are
many others, honest and devout men and women, who
have never possessed so much money as some rich
persons squander in a week, but who are nevertheless
really richer and happier than any man can ever be
while he is a transgressor of the higher laws of his
being. 

The inordinate love of money, no doubt, may be and is
“the root of all evil,” but money itself, when properly used,
is not only a “handy thing to have in the house,” but
affords the gratification of blessing our race by enabling
its possessor to enlarge the scope of human happiness
and human influence. The desire for wealth is nearly
universal, and none can say it is not laudable, provided
the possessor of it accepts its responsibilities, and uses
it as a friend to humanity. 

The history of money-getting, which is commerce, is a
history of civilization, and wherever trade has flourished
most, there, too, have art and science produced the
noblest fruits. In fact, as a general thing, money-getters
are the benefactors of our race. To them, in a great
measure, are we indebted for our institutions of learning
and of art, our academies, colleges and churches.
It is no argument against the desire for, or the possession
of wealth, to say that there are sometimes misers who
hoard money only for the sake of hoarding and who have
no higher aspiration than to grasp everything which comes
within their reach. As we have sometimes hypocrites in
religion, and demagogues in politics, so there are
occasionally misers among, money-getters. 

These, however, are only exceptions to the general rule. 

But when, in this country, we find such a nuisance and
stumbling block as a miser, we remember with gratitude
that in America we have no laws of primogeniture, and
that in the due course of nature the time will come when
the hoarded dust will be scattered for the benefit of
mankind. To all men and women, therefore, do I
conscientiously say, make money honestly, and not
otherwise, for Shakespeare has truly said;- 

“He that ‘wants’ money, means, and content, is without
three good friends.”