If a few drops of water be suffered to ooze through a dam without impediment, the full tide will soon follow. Drops make the clouds, the clouds send forth the rain,. the rain supplies the rivers, and the rivers the great ocean: By withholding the invisible vesicles exhaled by the sun, therefore, the multitudinous sea itself would ultimately be dried up. As word by word great books are made, so penny by penny great fortunes may be amassed. As a small rent in a garment will soon spread unless it be repaired, so petty extravagances will soon become a most serious expenditure unless the habit be duly checked. HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS.-Daniel Dancer, of Harrow, the celebrated miser, by carefully hoarding up his farthings and half-pence, acquired the immense sum of a million and a half of pounds sterling. He died October, 1794, in the 78th year of his age. Pliny the Elder, the great naturalist, wrote 20,000 treatises culled from 2000 volumes; and how was this effected? His biographer tells us, it was his daily prac tice to spend a portion of the night in studying by candle-light. Before daybreak he betook himself to the emperor Vespasian, to perform the commissions he might be charged with, and then returned home to breakfast while some one read to him. He would then take a cold bath, and, after a short nap, pursue his studies till suppertime. He was never without a book and his tablets; even at his meals, in his walks, and during the process of scraping and rubbing in the bath, he was either reading or being read to, and invariably made extracts from every book. As the collector of a Christian charity approached a certain house where he intended to call, he overheard the master rebuking one of his servants for wasting the end of a candle. The collector, thinking it would be no use to call upon a man of such economical habits, passed by; but upon reflection returned, and having stated the object of the charity, received a very large subscription. The gentleman observing an expression of surprise depicted on the collector's face, inquired into the cause, and after hearing the circumstance of the wasted candle end, replied, "If I allowed extravagant waste in my house, I could not afford a liberal subscription." Charles I., of England, suffered small encroachments to be made upon his prerogatives, whereby he lost both his crown and life. Had he boldly resisted the very first symptom of discontent, like Queen Elizabeth, he would probably have enjoyed a reign as prosperous as his illustrious predecessor. Thomas Guy began the trade of bookselling in 1660 with only 2007; by a systematic practice of the strictest economy he amassed an immense fortune, which he spent in charity. An old newspaper served him for a table-cloth; he never allowed himself more than one sort of food of the most homely kind; and the luxury even of a rush candle was an extravagance he never indulged in. This penurious, but benevolent man, founded Guy's Hospital; he gave during his lifetime 18,7937. to erect and furnish it, and . endowed it at his death with 219,4997., being the largest sum of money ever given by any individual for charitable purposes. He also built three wards of St. Thomas's Hospital in Southwark, the almshouses at Tamworth, a part of Christ's Hospital, &c.; and left 75,5897. at his death to be divided among his poor relations. He died at the age of eighty-one, A. D. 1724. John Overs, a waterman, who ferried passengers from Southwark to the city, by dint of penny savings acquired a very large fortune, with which his daughter, at his death, founded and endowed the church called St. Mary Overs, in London. John Elwes, Esq., M. P., of Stoke (Suffolk), and Marchham (Berkshire), though benevolent and strictly honest, was very parsimonious, and left behind him a property exceeding 800,000/. His maxim was, "that all great fortunes are made by saving, for of that only can a man be sure." He died 1789, at an advanced age. William Jenning, Esq., a neighbour and acquaintance of John Elwes, by similar thrift, accumulated a property estimated at a million sterling. He died 1797, aged ninety-seven years. QUOTATIONS. The ways to enrich are many: parsimony is one of the best.-Lord Bacon. A pin a day is a groat a year. Woful waste makes woful want. Ever save, ever had. Little and often fills the purse. No alchemy like economy. Without frugality none can be rich; and, with it, very few would be poor. Economy is a great income. Il ne faut pas manger tout son bien en un jour. Les petits ruisseaux font les grandes rivières. Obsta principiis. Non intelligunt homines quam magnum vectigal sit parsimonia. Cicero. Sera in fundo est parsimonia.-Seneca. CONCLUSION. THEME XXXII. Idle young Men make needy old ones. INTRODUCTION. Those who indulge habits of laziness in their youth, must expect to spend an old age of poverty and distress. 1ST REASON.-Property is not to be earned without great labour and steady industry; but a man who has habituated himself to idleness and frivolity in the early part of life, will be incapable of enduring the fatigue and toil essential for a thriving business. 2ND REASON. Those who would accumulate money must exercise economy and self-denial; but, after long indulgence in pleasure, both the body and mind are incapable of bearing the privation of those luxuries which habit has made essential to them. 3RD REASON. John Elwes says, "All great fortunes are made by savings;" but the only time for saving is in youth; when winter has come, it is too late to gather oney. 4TH REASON. Youth is the time for activity and endurance, old age of rest and indulgence. If the active period of youth be wasted in self-indulgence, the emaciated and feeble old man will have neither the will nor the power of providing for his daily increasing necessities. 5TH REASON.-Money is made by enterprise, but old men are averse to all novelties; hence few masters will employ an aged journeyman, and few tradesmen in their old age can compete with their younger rivals, or stand their ground against the force of modern improvements. 6TH REASON.-Idle young men acquire dissolute habits, which make great inroads on their property, and entail feebleness and disease upon their constitutions. 7TH REASON.-Self-indulgence is always followed by a craving after new sources of gratification. By indulging the passion its wants are increased, and its means of gratifying it proportionably diminished; so that in old age the wants become infinite, and the mind distressed with a perpetual desire for something unpossessed. 8TH REASON. THE CONVERSE. Those who have been frugal and industrious in youth, have fewer wants to satisfy, know by self-denial the sweetness of little indulgences, and have a well-saved store laid up against decrepitude and age. SIMILES. The Butterfly and the Ant.-Esop's fable. The Wasp and the Bee.-Esop's fable. The Grasshopper was told by the Ant, "Those who play in the summer must pipe in the winter." Land which has not been well cultivated in the spring will be unprolific in the harvest. A cask which is never used will become rotten and leaky. A young twig will soon take root and flourish; but an aged slip will wither in a few days. If the limbs are not well exercised in youth, they will be stiff and feeble in old age. HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS.-The Prodigal who spent his portion in riotous living, would have starved when it was spent, had not his Father taken compassion on him. -Luke, xv. Robert, Duke of Normandy, was so indolent, that he was compelled to mortgage his estates to William Rufus. He was ultimately reduced to poverty, and died in gaol. George Morland, the celebrated artist, was so lazy, that he was often held to his work by violence, or locked in a room to compel him to finish a picture to pay his tradesmen. Although his productions were in great demand, and sold for large sums of money, he was confined at the close of his life in the King's Bench prison for debt; and actually died in durance, Oct. 29. A. D. 1804. William Collins, the lyric and pastoral poet, was a man of great genius and cultivated taste; but so indolent that he was constantly involved in pecuniary difficulties, which so distressed his spirit, that he was confined in a lunatic asylum to prevent his committing suicide. He died at the age of 35 in 1756. Beronicius, who died in 1676, was so wonderful a language master that he could translate a common newspaper into Greek or Latin verse impromptu. He could |