CHAPTER XV.

The Management of Money.

OUGHLY speaking, in most households the husband is the provider or bread-winner, and the wife is the administrator of the income. A

great deal of unhappiness, however, is caused and much unnecessary friction by a lack of proper management of the family resources. Is the wife a licensed beggar or a business partner? On the answer to this question depends more of married felicity or of conjugal misery than the unthinking can ever know.

and many

Most wives dislike unspeakably to ask their husbands for money, otherwise excellent husbands make their wives perfectly miserable by the churlish or disagreeable way in which they dole out necessary funds for the maintenance of the family life. It would be well in the very beginning for people to arrive at some conclusion as to this important matter of domestic finance. Where the man has a salary, or brings home every week a certain stipend in the way of wages, it is quite easy for him to know how much he can afford to spend for house rent, for pew rent, for fuel, for his own and his wife's clothes, for table expenses, for traveling expenses and for the necessary items which come into the affairs of every day. He may sit down with his wife and they may together amiably apportion the various parts of the income intelligently, leaving a margin free for doctor's bills and for any sudden emergency which may occur. If they cut their coat according to their cloth, they will have great peace of mind and much comfort; and, just here, if the husband will give the wife a certain allowance for her personal expenses, so that she will not be obliged to go to him when she wishes to pay a visit; when she wishes to make a little contribution to a charity; when she wishes to buy herself a pair of gloves, he will find, and she will find, that their mutual happiness will be greatly increased. The lack of money wears out many an apparently well-to-do wife.

Most men have a notion that women are not to be trusted with money. They are willing to trust their wives with everything else; with things which you would consider more important than money-their good name; the reputation of the family; the care of the children-in fact, with everything which has to do with the actualities of life, and yet they say, "My wife, dear child, does not know how to manage money." How is she ever to learn unless it is given her to care Are you going to keep her a child till her hair is gray?

for?

There is often peculiar hardship in this aspect of the case when a wife has during her spinsterhood had an income of her own. As a young lady, she perhaps taught, and had her quarterly salary, which was absolutely her own to use as she pleased, or she was a clerk and brought home her weekly wages, or as a stenographer, or in some other position of responsibility she earned a fair living. When it comes to having no money at all except what John chooses to give her; when she has to ask this same good John for five cents to ride in the cars, or for the price of a pair of shoes, or a new gown, or a feather for her hat; when she cannot put her name down as a subscriber to a periodical or give a dollar to the missionaries, or do anything else she is inclined to without first consulting him, life becomes very bitter and the taste of married happiness is not so sweet as it well might be. This is most unfortunate, because if husbands could see it in the right way, they would be only too glad to try the business arrangement, and they would find in most cases that their wives, far from taking advantage of their justice-not their generosity-would prove themselves admirable financiers.

A woman's self-respect and her ability to take a fair view of matters is greatly increased if she is treated as an equal by her husband; and certainly the money which comes into the home is the joint property of both. The wife, though her duties are indoors, does as much toward the saving of the income and toward the presenting of the family in a right light to the world, as her husband can possibly do in his business.

There are instances, it must be conceded, and not a few, where it is by no means plain sailing to thus manage: as when a man has no certain fixed income and cannot always tell how he is coming out at the end of the year. It will be necessary for him to watch very closely, indeed, the relative obligations of income and outgo; but the true wife is willing to share his anxieties and does not wish to increase his burdens. Often the man makes the great mistake of not letting his wife know just how he is situated and so she incurs expenses which she would scorn to do if she were treated fairly.

People living on farms and not needing to handle very much money often find a different arrangement necessary and convenient from that which prevails in town life; but there is a great unfairness in that sort of management which enables the husband to hire all the help he wants in the fields, and to hold the purse strings very tightly, while the wife toils faithfully year after year and never has a cent to call her own. Always for him the pocket-book, for her the empty purse. It is not fair.

About the whole question of domestic finance there should be perfect confidence and a sensible division of the money in hand, with always a prudent forethought for the rainy day. It is unwise to live up to the full extent of one's income. There will always be breakers ahead for people who do this.

as possible, one should begin to lay up something for the day of sickness; the day when the education of children will call for greater outlay; the day of old age. To live without thrift and with great improvidence is a sin as well as a blunder. If possible a man should have a life insurance, the premium of which should be punctually paid, as any deficiency in this will invalidate all that has gone before. To keep up the premium may sometimes mean a good deal of self-denial for all concerned; still, it should always be done, for if in the changes and chances of this world, the bread-winner be taken away, he will be happier to know that he is leaving his wife not unprovided for in a cold and stormy world.

People are of different minds as to what proportion of their income should be given to the service of God. In the old Hebrew economy the tenth at least was always laid on the altar of Jehovah. It would seem as if the Christian would desire to appropriate a share of what God gives for God's service. All that we have and are we owe to the divine blessing, and we may well say when we offer our gifts in the temple of God, "Of Thine own we give Thee." There is a sporadic giving which is impulsive and enthusiastic; there is an unsettled giving which amounts to very little; there is a way of contributing to the church and to benevolence prayerfully and according to system, and this way in the end brings down a blessing on one's self and helps forward the coming of the heavenly kingdom in the earth. Singularly, one never misses that which is given to the Lord. It always brings back its return in full measure from His loving hand. We must not forget that we are stewards and that often the only thing we can offer to our dear Lord, showing Him how much we love Him, how much we desire to serve Him, is our money.

The pastor of a church in New York City once told me that in his congregation there were no rich people, and very few who could really be called more than poor; but, he said, "My people have consecrated their means to the Lord, and the result is that they give largely on all occasions. They put aside week by week, as God prospers them, what they can spare, and the result is that our collections are always wonderfully generous and often surprise me by their aggregate. Not long ago," he said, "I preached a sermon in which I urged that a liberal contribution should be given to our foreign missionary fund. This was in the morning of the Sabbath, and in the afternoon, as I walked through the Sunday-school, a young lady beckoned me to her and handed me a roll of bills. She said, 'My sister and I wish to contribute this to the missionary cause.' When I counted the amount it was one hundred dollars. I said to her, 'Are you justified in making so large a contribution?' She answered, Yes; this is what we have been putting aside from time to time as a gift to the Master.'" Another very poor woman, earning her living as a laundress, during a winter of unprecedentedly hard times was not called upon as usual by the collector of the missionary society, for the

reason that the pastor thought that it would not be right to ask her to give anything that year. She was ill and could not go out, but she sent one of her children to her pastor's house asking for a visit. When he came she put her hand under her pillow, produced a little purse and said: "Here is my dollar and a half which I have been saving, but which they forgot to call for. This is my offering to God, and I should be very much disappointed and very sorry if it did not go in the way that I meant it to." There is a lesson here for all of us. Let us never forget that, whether we have much or little, a certain proportion of it is always due to the Lord, who loves us and who bought us with His own blood; who kept nothing back when He came to this world to save us, and who accepts the gifts of our love as we make them in His name. "Freely ye have received, freely give," is a motto for every Christian.

"Imogen," said a friend the other day, "has developed an amazing capacity for business management since David's death. David never consulted her at all. His large fortune comes to her as a great surprise, but she shows a wonderful capacity for handling it wisely, and she is most able and clear-headed." So would other women prove if they had the chance.

In illustration of our theme we quote an admirable story from Harper's Bazar:

Fidelia's Purse.

"If only I had some money of my own! I envy the maids when they reach the end of the month and receive their wages. I envy old Aunty Jane, the charwoman, as she goes in and out of the apartment-house over the way, for she earns her bread, and buys it with her earnings. As for me, I am a pauper in velvet and silk, and I don't think I have much reason to boast myself concerning my clothes. I'd as lief be a beggar in rags and be done with it."

"But, Fidelia," urged her sister, "why don't you tell Benjamin how you feel? Benjamin loves you dearly; he worships the ground you walk on; he does not want you to have a wish ungratified. Look at this drawing room, a bower for a queen; look at your carriage, a dream of luxury; your horses, your coachman, your footman, the service which waits on your every step! My dear Fidelia, if the people up in Greenbrier County saw all this, and heard your complaints, they would think you had lost your senses."

"I'm likely to lose them if things go on as they're doing now," answered Fidelia, firmly. "When I was a girl in Greenbrier I had one white frock, which I had worn to parties for five years. The tucks were let down as I grew taller, summer after summer. The lace on the waist had been washed and mended; my slippers were homemade; my gloves were cleaned till they gave notice on their own account that they wouldn't stand it any longer. I had a black alpaca for school wear, both as teacher and as pupil; I thrummed on an ancient piano, I rode.

an old plow-horse, when he wasn't wanted in the field; I visited the sick, I sang in the choir, I did as I pleased, and I was happy. That last year at home my salary was two hundred dollars. Two hundred dollars! Think of the wealth, of the independence, of the joy, of the sense of something accomplished, something done, which earn's a night's repose! I was happy then, Marion-happy; and I am not happy now. I am wretchedly discontented-a bird beating against the bars of my cage. Why, this gown I have on now cost a hundred dollars, and my fur cloak would pay the salary of the Greenbrier schoolmistress-bless her soul!— for five years. I wish I were she."

"Do you never have money?" inquired Marion, perceiving that Fidelia was very much in earnest, and divining that this outbreak was more than a passing caprice. Ever since she had been with Fidelia, enjoying with the fresh and eager zest and enthusiasm of a country girl for the first time in her life away from home, and for the first time a guest in a great house in a great city, the operas and theatres and concerts and parks and promenades and mornings of music, and drawing rooms where elegant women assembled to listen to charming lectures on every subject under the sun, and luncheons, dinners, pleasures of every kind going on, she had been aware that Fidelia was dissatisfied. But she had not been able to comprehend the reason at the core of the discontent. Fidelia's husband was devotion itself; and though, as a busy professional man, he gave comparatively little time to his home, still, when he was there, he was so kind, considerate, suave and deferential that Marion, albeit she was accustomed to good manners in the men she knew-as every Southern woman is—could find nothing to criticise. "I never have anything to call money," Fidelia answered, solemnly, her large eyes filling with tears, which she dashed away. She was a beauty, Fidelia, with her great violet eyes, her golden hair, and her daintily poised head, and Marion was used to seeing her have her own way. Tears in Fidelia's eyes because she had no money, when she lived in elegance and splendor, quite confounded Marion, who put down her embroidery and went across the room to bring the smelling-salts.

"Nonsense, sister! I'm not ill," exclaimed Fidelia; "I'm simply out of sorts, and disgusted with a disagreeable situation. I ought to be ashamed to make you uncomfortable because I am, but I'll tell you how it is. I have carfare if I choose to ride in cars, though Benjamin prefers my going out in greater state, and the horses need exercise, and altogether he does not like my patronizing the public conveyances, when I can be seen in our own equipage. I have a little change for emergencies. Once in a great while I have a five-dollar bill. But I want my own bank account; I want liberty to manage my affairs as best pleases me. I desire to make a present to mamma without consulting my husband, to pay little Tennie's music bills out of savings of my own; I don't wish to be treated