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Friendly counsels for freedmen

Chapter 4: ECONOMY.
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About This Book

A minister offers practical and moral guidance to recently emancipated people, welcoming their freedom while warning that liberty brings new responsibilities. He encourages gratitude and industry, urging recipients to seek honest labor even at low pay, accept temporary government aid but aim for self-reliance, and use savings to guard against future need. The pamphlet stresses personal habits—cleanliness, economy, sobriety—and insistence on honesty, truthfulness, and avoidance of stealing, lying, and profane swearing. Moral instruction is grounded in Scripture and framed to help families secure stable, respectable livelihoods.

ECONOMY.

Economy is another thing we recommend. This means saving all you can above and beyond what is needful for you to live upon. Don’t spend your money foolishly. Don’t spend it on rum or tobacco. Don’t gamble it away. Don’t buy expensive clothes or rich food. Some poor people, when they get a little money, think they may spend it in a frolic. All this is bad, and brings a man or a family very soon to want.

We don’t wish you to be stingy, nor like one who hates to spend a penny even for what is necessary. This is not what we mean. But take care of your wages. Make them go as far as you can in supporting yourself and family; and if there is any over, lay it up against a time of need. Only don’t waste it; for the Bible makes the waster and the slothful man brothers. “He also that is slothful in his work, is brother to him that is a great waster.”