 A gentleman borrowed five hundred dollars of a widow, giving his note. Soon afterward her eldest son got into trouble of such a kind that the penitentiary was in prospect for him. The borrower investigated the situation, and found that the young man had done wrong, but that the action was without criminal intention. Older and designing persons had taken advantage of his inexperience and had made him a tool for the execution of their own illegal purposes. The borrower used his influence in the proper way, saved the young man from disaster, and set him on his feet. Warned and instructed by this experience, he made a man of himself. Not very long afterward the second son of the widow fell into serious, though not so grave, difficulties, and the borrower extricated him also from his dilemma. In the meantime the note was not paid because the man was not able, and, too, although he had not made any claim for it, he thought that he ought to have some consideration for his services to the two sons. After a few years the widow died. Now there must be a settlement; but the borrower hoped the son who had been so efficiently befriended would be made administrator of the estate. Instead, a son-in-law was appointed, a man who, though successful in business, had the reputation of not being very particular as to the methods by which he attained success. This did not indicate leniency about the payment of the note, but the borrower allowed things to drift without any action until the legal time for the settlement of the estate had nearly expired. He then began to think that the administrator had decided to let the whole subject drop, when one day an officer walked into his place of business and served a warrant on him for a thousand dollars. Delay could no longer continue. Something must be done. The question was, "What?" The borrower decided to begin by regulating his own mind, and succeeded so well that without mental discord he could think of all the incidents and persons connected with the affair, including his own remissness in not attending to the business as he ought to have done. A few days before the time to appear and answer the warrant he sought out the administrator and told him that he had come to talk about the note. To the direct questions which the administrator asked he responded frankly that he made the note in good faith, that the signature was his own, that he received the money at the time he gave the note, and that he had not paid anything, not even the interest. Of course, such admissions to the administrator would ruin his case in any court. He then said that he thought two men of average intelligence who wanted nothing but what was right could themselves settle such a question as this without the intervention of the law. He maintained his own harmonious frame of mind while he told the administrator the whole story, and then the subject was discussed between them. The result was that at the end of an amicable conference of half an hour, without any suggestion or request from the borrower, the administrator offered to "call the whole thing square" without the payment of any money. Avoidance of discordant thinking is of immense and direct importance, and even of money value, in business transactions; and yet all this is only controlling the mental action so as to keep it within the lines indicated by principle. |
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