To associate with influential and genteel people with an appearance of equality, unquestionably has its advantages; particularly where there is a family of sons and daughters just coming upon the theatre of life; but, like all other external advantages, these have their proper price, and may be bought too dearly.  They who never reserve a cent of their income, with which to meet any unforeseen calamity, ’pay too dear for the whistle,’ whatever temporary benefits they may derive from society.  Self-denial, in proportion to the narrowness of your income, will eventually be the happiest and most respectable course for you and yours.  If you are prosperous, perseverance and industry will not fail to place you in such a situation as your ambition covets; and if you are not prosperous, it will be well for your children that they have not been educated to higher hopes than they will ever realize.

If you are about to furnish a house, do not spend all your money, be it much or little.  Do not let the beauty of this thing, and the cheapness of that, tempt you to buy unnecessary articles.  Doctor Franklin’s maxim was a wise one, ’Nothing is cheap that we do not want.’  Buy merely enough to get along with at first.  It is only by experience that you can tell what will be the wants of your family.  If you spend all your money, you will find you have purchased many things you do not want, and have no means left to get many things which you do want.  If you have enough, and more than enough, to get everything suitable to your situation, do not think you must spend it all, merely because you happen to have it.  Begin humbly.  As riches increase, it is easy and pleasant to increase in hospitality and splendour; but it is always painful and inconvenient to decrease.  After all, these things are viewed in their proper light by the truly judicious and respectable.  Neatness, tastefulness, and good sense, may be shown in the management of a small household, and the arrangement of a little furniture, as well as upon a larger scale; and these qualities are always praised, and always treated with respect and attention.  The consideration which many purchase by living beyond their income, and of course living upon others, is not worth the trouble it costs.  The glare there is about this false and wicked parade is deceptive; it does not in fact procure a man valuable friends, or extensive influence.  More than that, it is wrong—­morally wrong, so far as the individual is concerned; and injurious beyond calculation to the interests of our country.  To what are the increasing beggary and discouraged exertions of the present period owing?  A multitude of causes have no doubt tended to increase the evil; but the root of the whole matter is the extravagance of all classes of people.  We never shall be prosperous till we make pride and vanity yield to the dictates of honesty and prudence!  We never shall be free from embarrassment until we cease to be ashamed of industry and economy.  Let women