A VICIOUS HABIT

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8654, 12 February 1914, Page 8

A VICIOUS HABIT

NOT PAYING ONE’S DEBTS. SERMON BY CANON SEDGWICK. Special to tho “Times.” CHRISTCHURCH, February 10. A great habit in New Zealand, said Canon Sedgwick (Bishop-elect of Wmapu) in a sermon on Sunday, was not paving one’s debts. This vicious habit had got a big'hold upon the people of this country, and tho canon recited tho case of a dressmaker and her daughter, whoso piano had to be sold because they had not enough money, with which to buy the necessaries of life. Yet ho knew these women were! always working hard and numbered' among their clients many people of, high standing in the city of Christ-i church. He was shocked at the removal of the piano, because ho knew the mother and daughter wcro refined people who could ill-spare the instrument that produced tho greatest, cheer in their homo. “Why must the piano go?” ho asked them. “Because,” they replied, “we cannot get our money in. If we were to read you the names of tho people who owe ns money, you would receive the surprise of your life, for many are the leading people in Christchurch. One family has just gone Home for a trip, so wo know w© shall not get that money for at least a year.” The Canon said he had learned also that these two women had been living on bread and butter for, two or throe days, because they could not get their money in, and, on principle, would not buy what they could not pay for. This case so stirred him that the following Sunday he preached on the subject, of paying one’s debts in a manner that he had never preached before, and he had the pleasure of knowing that the following days numbers of debts were paid throughout Christchurch, as the admitted result of that sermon.