Page:Sermons on the Ten Commandments.djvu/136

 one's debts at all is manifest stealing; for it is depriving another of his rightful property. It implies, also, the sin of falsehood; for a person, in contracting a debt, promises to make payment at a certain time. But this is not all: a want of strict punctuality in the payment of debts is also in a manner stealing; for every hour that payment is withheld after it becomes due, the person from whom it is withheld is deprived of the benefits which he might have had by the use of his property during that time. It should be looked upon as a sin, a sin against God, thus to deprive the neighbor of what rightfully belongs to him. There may be occasions, indeed—times of extreme and unexpected pressure, when it is absolutely impossible to keep one's engagements. But with a man who is prudent, as well as honest and upright in all his dealings, from religious principle, such occasions will be rare. And as to the payment of small domestic and family debts, I consider that there is no exception. No man of common honesty or right feeling, much less of religious principle, will suffer such debts to remain unpaid a day after they are due. If they cannot be paid otherwise, he will contrive to do it by making sacrifices of conveniences, and even of comforts, by contracting his family expenses within the smallest possible limits, and by denying himself every costly pleasure, till the debt is paid. Who can tell the amount of suffering caused among tradespeople, needle-women, washerwomen, and others of the class to whom family debts are commonly due, by negligence in the payment of such debts. No just