isasters, of any other
men; because they know not--no, not the most prosperous of them--what
may be their own fate in the world. There is a Scripture proverb, if I
may call it so, very necessary to a tradesman in this case, 'Let him
that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.'

N.B. It is not said, let him that standeth take heed, but him _that
thinketh_ he standeth. Men in trade can but think they stand; and there
are so many incidents in a tradesman's circumstances, that sometimes
when he thinks himself most secure of standing, he is in most danger of
falling.

If, then, the contingent nature of trade renders every man liable to
disaster that is engaged in it, it seems strange that tradesmen should
be outrageous and unmerciful to one another when they fall; and yet so
it is, that no creditor is so furious upon an unhappy insolvent
tradesman, as a brother-tradesman of his own class, and who is at least
liable to the same disaster, in the common event of his business.

Nay, I have lived to see--such is the uncertainty of human affairs, and
especially in trade--the furious and outrageous creditor become bankrupt
himself in a few years, or perhaps months after, and begging the same
mercy of others, which he but just before denied to his not more
unfortunate fellow-tradesman, and making the same exclamations at the
cruelty and hard-heartedness of his creditors in refusing to comply with
him, when, at the same time, his own heart must reproach him with his
former conduct; how inexorable he was to all the entreaties and tears of
his miserable neighbour and his distressed family, who begged his
compassion with the lowest submission, who employed friends to solicit
and entreat for them, laying forth their misery in the most lively
expressions, and using all the arguments which the most moving distress
could dictate, but in vain.

The tradesman is certainly wrong in this, as compassion to the miserable
is a debt of charity due from all mankind to their fellow-creatures; and
though the purse-proud tradesman may be able to say he is above the fear
of being in the like circumstances, as some may be, yet, even then, he
might reflect that perhaps there was a time when he was not so, and he
ought to pay that debt of charity, in acknowledgement of the mercy that
has set him above the danger.

And yet, speaking in the ordinary language of men who are subject to
vicissitudes of fortune, where is the man that is sure he shall