cannot be conceived of as existing among beasts. Properly a debt is a moral obligation; but in the relations which men sustain to each other as members of a common political society and under the authority of civil laws, sometimes debt exists formally where it does not actually. Through injustice or dishonesty, through the abuse of power or the exercise of cunning, men often take advantage of each other, and make demands for that which is not morally due; and these demands they are able legally to enforce. Thus there are, we may say, three kinds of specific debt:

(1) That which one is legally but not morally bound to pay;

(2) That which one is morally but not legally bound to pay; and

(3) That which one is both legally and morally bound to pay.

With reference to the first kind of debts which one is legally but not morally bound to pay, it may be remarked that they are not true debts; they do not immediately signify duties. They are misfortunes, the results perhaps of carelessness, or even of selfishness. No obligation to pay such debts inheres in the debts themselves; but there may be obligation to pay them arising from the duty of maintaining the

laws, even though, through imperfection, the laws sometimes work injustice to the individual, or from the duty of yielding a right before the higher right of preserving peace and morally benefiting another.

Such debts as are legal but not strictly moral must be dealt with according to the merits and circumstances of the particular case. As far as possible avoid such debts by a careful circumspection in your dealings with men.

There is a kind of debt of which I am loath to speak, but which the ethical teacher is compelled to notice. I refer to obligations assumed while one is in a mentally and morally irresponsible condition, — as, for example, when he is drunk, and obligations that are assumed in betting and other forms of gambling. The laws and the courts recognize that the chief elements in an obligatory contract are wanting in both of these cases; and to a large extent they protect men from the consequences of their own folly or vice. But the moral obligation of the debtor cannot always be determined by a legal process. Two or three things are pretty clear: it is immoral to get drunk, and it is immoral to gamble; and certainly the creditor who has made himself formally such by taking advantage of another man's weakness

or ignorance, or by the arbitrament of chance, has no moral right to compel payment. But the debtor who has made himself formally such while intoxicated, or by gaming, must face the question whether the payment of the factitious debt is not a penalty for his immorality which he would better endure as a wholesome discipline; if in this way he can guard himself from a second experience, the lesson will be worth its cost. Certainly no man has a right to put himself in an irresponsible condition, and no man has a right to incur obligations, or to exact the fulfilment of obligations, that rest on no solid basis of service or value rendered for an equivalent. In gambling there is no equivalent rendered for the value received. A fine sense of honor will shrink from the whole wretched business of gaming and betting as unworthy of men. When we are more civilized we shall put betting where we have put duelling, and the question of factitious debts will pass out of the discussion of practical ethics.

With reference to the second kind of debt, - that which one is morally but not legally bound to pay, there scarcely can be two opinions where there is sound judgment and quick conscience. Debt is duty, and laws do

not make or unmake duty; they simply define

certain duties, and often do that very imperfectly. What you owe to another, that other has a right to have; for obligations on one side involve corresponding rights on the other. It is always the moral rather than the merely legal element which is predominant in a true debt. There are many men who have false ideas of the ethics of debt. A debt that does not bind them by law is considered a doubtful claim. Just as in the minds of some men an oath is more binding than a simple affirmation, and perjury a sin far exceeding in gravity the most outrageous lying, so, in some minds, the gravamen of obligation in a debt lies in the strength of the legal claim. The result is that debts often are evaded through legal defects, or repudiated because there is no power to compel their payment. The dishonesty of this is radical.

Through misfortune, which he could neither foresee not avert, a man may be placed in such circumstances that he cannot pay his debts; and in certain cases the law mercifully and wisely steps in to save him from such utter destitution as would deprive him of power ever to recover his loss. But whether bound by legal requirement or not, the debtor is morally bound; and if he is a

true man, the only thing that will prevent him from meeting all his obligations is absolute inability.

There are many people who seem to think very lightly of debt; as though it were a small matter to be under financial obligation. Not a few have no hesitation in incurring debt without the slightest intention of ever troubling themselves about paying the debt; yet they would scorn to steal. Meanwhile it would tax a very subtle casuist to draw a valid and clear distinction between many a debtor and a thief.

Always a true debt involves moral obligation; and whether there be legal obligation or not is a small matter before the bar of conscience.

It is a lesson which multitudes need to learn, -that a debt is meant to be paid. Simple as the lesson is, even religion seems insufficient to teach it effectually to some men. Whatever human laws may say, God's law says: "Pay what thou owest!" A debt may be forgiven, and so dissolved; but it cannot be repudiated without guilt. Moral obligation is the most tenacious and persistent thing in this universe. The debt which you refuse to pay has in it a moral element that will abide when time has