The Prosperity Bible

You will never reach the place where you have all you want to spend except by commanding yourself to spend, and to want to spend, less than your income, whatever that may happen to be; for having all you want to spend is a state of mind, not a matter of hundreds, thousands or millions of dollars income. With all Anna Gould’s millions her French husband, de Castellane, has never had all he wanted to spend.

You will never have “enough for your needs” except by ruling your needs; for this too is a state of mind, not a matter of the size of your income. You “ need” what you think you need; and in order to have “enough for your needs,” you must change your mind as to your needs.

This is the only sure way to do it. To enlarge your income will never do it, because your “needs” will grow with your income, as long as your state of mind remains unchanged, always outstripping your income. Your “needs” will continue to suck the life out of your income and howl for more. Try it if you will, but you will only prove that what I tell you about is true. And I know from a full experience.

Every human being is a little garden patch of desires, where one desire or set of desires must thrive at the expense of another desire or set of desires; just as your strawberry plants must thrive at the expense of the weeds which try so hard to grow along with your berry plants. As you nip those weeds in the bud in order to give the strawberry plants a chance to grow and bear fruit, so in the garden of your heart you must continually nip in the bud the undesirable desires in order to allow the desirable desires to gain in stature and bear fruit.

All our beautiful flowers had their beginnings in weeds. The gardener gave a tiny young weed its particular place in his garden; he gave it rich earth and plenty of moisture; he sheltered it from cold winds and allowed no other weeds, nor even his choicest plants, to grow near to it and sap its energy and he clipped innumerable little sprouts and buds from that weed and from the earth near it, as fast as they appeared, leaving only one bud to mature, and just leaves enough to give that one bud plenty of breathing capacity. So in time there were roots enough for a great sprawling weed with scores of little gnarly shoots and flowers; but there was only one slender stalk with a single bloom; and such a bloom!—no weed had ever before borne such a flower. Then the seeds of that one flower were planted, and the tiny plants tended as the first one had been; and behold, a still larger and more beautiful flower. Then after many generations of this careful tending and clipping process, a plant was allowed to bear several blooms, all of which were so large and beautiful that you’d never dream their great-grandmother was that gnarly little weed that tried to elbow everything else out of the garden.

The desire to live within your income is a homely and necessary plant which should be cultivated at all hazards. Where this desire is not thrifty and strong you will find it surrounded by weeds which are trying to grow at its expense—weeds of Desire for This, That and The Other (all good things in themselves but not good in their effects unless procured without straining your income) which if allowed foothold will eventually mature and bring forth the gnarled flowers and bitter fruits of theft, embezzlement and even murder.

Such men as the world and their old friends have learned to execrate as betrayers of public and private trust, such men as Butler and Blair of St. Louis and Holley of Holyoke and innumerable defaulting cashiers, etc., are men who have permitted the weeds of Desire for This, That and The Other to completely choke out the Desire to Keep Within Their Income. We know their fate and abhor it, even if we are charitable enough not to abhor them.

But many of us are on the same tack without realizing it. The man or woman who Has It Charged is growing a weed of Desire for This, That and The Other at the expense of the Desire to Keep Within Income; they are crowding out the homely plant of Honesty by letting the weeds choke it. If they keep at it long enough and have courage enough and opportunity enough they will be Blairs or Holleys. The weeds of Desire for This, That and The Other will possess them.

But the common run of us are too cowardly and our opportunities too limited (probably because we are cowardly) to enable us to shine so conspicuously as Getters of This, That and The Other for which we cannot pay. We dosn’t go too far. Fear of punishment, either by the public authorities or an angry God, or by the hell fires inside of us, deters us from outright stealing of This, That and The Other. So we cut off the tops of some of our weeds—we run in debt as far as we dare, for This, That and The Other, and promise to pay, when we know perfectly well that unless a miracle occurs we can’t do it; when we know that unless our wildest hopes are realized (which seldom are) we shall not be able to pay when the time comes; when we know that emergencies are continually arising to prevent us from keeping promises. We cut off the tops of our tallest weeds of Desire for This, That and The Other, but we leave the roots and the “most necessary” sprouts—we “only Have It Charged when it’s absolutely necessary;” which is in 999 cases out of 1,000 a mere sophistry.

There might be in any life an occasional time when it is “absolutely necessary” to Have It Charged or to borrow—which is the same thing—just as there might come up a weed over night; but there is NEVER a continued necessity for buying what one has not the money to pay for.

Of course this does not refer to Having It Charged as a matter of convenience, when one already has in bank the money to pay for it. I refer to the habit of buying today that which one hopes to pay for out of tomorrow’s work; the living this week on money one hopes to earn next week; the spending of money which is still On The Books; or even living this week off money we expect to receive on Saturday night. All living ahead of the money in hand, no matter when that money may be “due,” is done at the expense of that homely plant, the Desire to Live Within Your Income, the essence of which is Honesty. And that plant, dearie, is the ONLY one from which we can distill the essence of Honesty. That is why I so strongly desire us to cultivate it.

The habit of Having It Charged is an ugly, gnarled and distorted weed whose root is the Desire for This, That and The Other; Desire which has been permitted to burrow and spread itself until it is in a fair way to completely starve that homely plant from which we distill Honesty.

Don’t you know how, when you get the new chair you desired, the one like “Mrs. Smith’s,” immediately your room looks shabby and you find yourself desiring a new cushion or two to match—and new curtains—and then a new carpet to take the place of the old one which looks old fashioned now beside the new chair—and a dozen other things? And then when the door is open into the next room that looks shabby and you desire new things for that. And so your Desire for This, That and The Other goes running like a noxious weed in an untended garden, all over your house and premises, and yourself and children and husband, until it sucks the life all out of your income and the peace out of your heart and the hearts of those around you.

All these things are lovely in themselves, but when purchased at the price of your conscience and the peace of mind of yourself and husband they are not expedient; that is, they do not speed your soul’s expression; they do not help you to express the best of yourself. In other words they retard your development.

It is by the best use of what we have that we learn our lessons and get ready for more things in a higher class. What would you think of a third reader pupil who insisted upon working in high school classes? And yet that is what every one of us does when he insists upon having that for which he cannot pay; and those of us who persist in that course come to a grand smash at last and are set back into their proper classes. Very often they find that class in the penitentiary; more often they find it in the lack of faith of their neighbors, who have learned by experience (their own and each others’) not to trust them. So perforce they come down to their class and quit Having It Charged because nobody will charge it.

But he does not even yet live within his means because he wants to; and right action is incomplete unless rooted in strong desire. His heart-garden is overrun with those noxious weeds of Desire for This, That and The Other but he is now so placed that he must root out the majority of them, thus allowing the growth of Desire to Live Within His Income. When every attempt to Have It Charged meets with a cold rebuff one has an incentive to root out the desire to Have It Charged. So the Desire for This, That and The Other is not only lopped off at the top but it is starved at the bottom—paralyzed by fear of rebuffs.

I once read a remarkable story about two men who had let their heart-gardens overrun with Desire for This, That and The Other to such an extent that Honesty was a mere gasping rootlet without signs of life. One of these men was sentenced to five years in the penetentiary, which he served—after snugly caching his half of the stolen money. The other narrowly escaped.

The one who went to prison hatched while there a beautiful scheme for getting even with the world. He had been sent to prison for appropriating a paltry little $10,000 while such men as Rockefeller stole millions and were toadied; now he proposed to get even by stealing a cool half million from the world.

Upon his release he hunted up his old pal, who, after spending his $5,000, had been having a hard time because nobody would let him Have It Charged and everybody was afraid to trust him to do anything more responsible than janitor work, which he had never learned to do. Smith was his name. The other man’s name after his release from prison was Johnson.

Johnson found Smith ripe for the new scheme, which was this: Smith was to go away to a new city where nobody knew him (Johnson could not trust himself because his gait reminded the observer of the prison lock-step); Smith was to change his name; to hire a modest office and pay for it out of Johnson’s money of which a thousand or two were to be banked in Smith’s new name, with more forthcoming from Johnson when needed; he was to buy good but plain furnishings and Have Them Charged; and promptly on presentation of the bill he was to pay with a check. This was done to impress people that Smith Bought Things and Paid Cash. If the things had not been Charged Smith would not have been so quickly brought to the town’s notice as a Man of Means and Honesty. As soon as Smith’s credit was established he was to begin to borrow money; first small sums and then larger as his credit grew; every time taking care to pay ahead of time, receiving the regular discount. In short, Smith was to live for five years as a strictly honest man who had everything Charged and Paid When He Said He Would, and who was Getting Rich Fast.

Johnson calculated that in five years of this sort of living Smith’s credit would be good for a cool $500,000 in cash. At the expiration of the five years Smith was to borrow all he could lay his hands on and with Johnson skip for parts unknown.

The scheme worked like a charm. At the expiration of the five years Smith could command over $500,000 in cash, outside of his flourishing business, which, of course, could not be turned into cash without rousing suspicion of some sort and thus hurting his credit. And all these years Smith had lived well, though not extravagantly, as another aid in growing his credit.

Then, before the date for the final coup, he went to see Johnson, whom he had kept informed secretly of his progress. And what do you think Smith said? His first words were, “Johnny, I can’t do it; five years of living like an honest man have made me prize honesty above everything else; I can’t throw away the clean credit I have made, nor desert the fine business I have built up; my heart and pride are in it and to desert now would kill me.”

And how do you suppose Johnson took it? He drew a long breath and—smiled. “Smithy,” he said, “I’m with you; these five years of helping you to be square, of taking pride in your success, have made me see things I never dreamed of before; why, Smithy, it’s easier to get an honest living than a dishonest one, ain’t it?—and a feller feels a heap better while he’s a-doin’ it, don’t he?” So Smith and Johnson shook hands solemnly and lived honest ever after. Johnson went home with Smith and they worked together to still further build the business and grow an Honest Credit, which they guarded as the apple of their eye.

Smith and Johnson were cultivating an ugly weed—the Desire to Get Even. In order to satisfy this weed they must have an enormous credit. In order to grow an enormous credit they must live STRICTLY WITHIN THEIR MEANS, seeing to it that their Means always kept well ahead of their Desire for This, That and The Other. By living this way five years they learned to want above ALL things to live within their means; they found the noxious weed of Desire to Get Even had lived its short life (all weeds are shortlived) and died a natural death.