There are many crises in life, but many of the greatest are connected with love, marriage and the duties they bring. The young man who expects to be married can save far better before than after that event. Thousands of hard places in married life are smoothed away if there is a nest-egg laid by. The unexpected expenses, not foreseen in any carefully made plan, are far more easily met if there is something besides the weekly salary to meet them with. Thrift before marriage makes for happiness after the ceremony. There ought to be and actually is no stronger incentive for economy on the part of a young man than the prospect of marriage. What the right sort of girl is able to accomplish is told in a true story that appeared several years ago in the American Magazine:

"It was all due to the girl. Before I knew her the idea that I could save anything out of my small salary seemed preposterous. I was not extravagant, but I liked to gratify my desires. Self-denial I had not tried to practise, but I have discovered it is absolutely essential - the heart, in fact, of saving.

"After we had come to a tacit recognition of the fact that I was 'her beau' the girl one evening said:

"'How much do you pay weekly for your room?'"

"'Four dollars,' I answered. 'It is a good-sized, comfortable one.'"

"'Don't you think you can get a nice hall room and be comfortable enough for three dollars? You go and do it and give me the other dollar.'

"'Anything else you wish me to do?'

"'Yes,' she answered. 'You call on me once a week. You live only a mile away, but I suppose you ride. Walk, and give me the ten cents car fare. You'll find the walk short if you think of me. Then every night you come here you smoke two cigars. What price ones?'

"I answered, Ten cents.'

""I'm not going to ask you to smoke poor cigars,' she said, 'but instead of two, smoke one. By smoking slowly and not all at once, one will last you just as long as two and you can give me the ten cents difference. Then you ride both ways to business, don't you? Well, I won't ask you to walk home when you are tired, but rise a little earlier and walk down. It will do you good and you can give me the thirty cents a week that you'll save. What do you spend for your luncheon?'

"'Only twenty-five cents.'

"'Well, cut out the piece of pie or something you really don't require, reduce the cost to twenty cents and give me the thirty cents weekly difference. It's a mistake to eat hearty midday meals - makes one sleepy and dull. Then you go to the movies six times a week, you told me. Go three and give me the fifteen cents saved.'

"Well, I obeyed her and found it not at all difficult. I started the first week in January, 1911. The first week in January, 1912, she handed me one hundred one dollars and forty cents.

"'That's what you've saved,' she said. 'I didn't take the money for myself, but to show you you could save if you tried. Here's a statement:

"I married the girl, and it's needless to say we live fairly well and have a constantly increasing balance in bank."

After a man is married he owes a duty to wife and children to protect them if he is suddenly called away. It is a pretty serious thought that the future of an entire family depends solely upon the life of one of its members. It is far better for wife and children to go without certain luxuries and pleasures in the present than without the barest necessities of life in the future.

Providing for old age, whether for one's self or one's family, is a meritorious object. Whether rightly or wrongly the world never respects a dependent old man. Often unjustly it suspects him of lack of ability. To avoid want, anxiety and humiliation in old age is the duty of every one. I am convinced that people grow more and more careless in regard to this important provision. It is a dangerous tendency, but to some extent a reaction from too thoughtful provision. Many young people are disgusted at the perhaps unconscious hypocrisy of those who, under the cloak of providing for old age, accumulate vast sums far beyond the reasonable wants of humanity. Oh, for a happy medium!

Live a well-balanced and rounded life. Don't live wholly in the present or in the future. Thrift represents the proper relation not only between income and outgo, but between the present and the future.