How many of the upper class and upper-middle class have stood still long enough to consider how much they earn and how much they pay out?

It would pay each person to set up a bookkeeping system to outline the profit and loss statement: How much does it take a poor person or one on fixed income to live within his means?

Are you like the two teens I saw in a bus station, who came in driving a sports car and got a roll of quarters to play video games? As soon as those were gone, one said to the other, “You out of money?” and the reply was “Yeah.”

The lottery is only a game that lives on hopes, not hopes of the Lord coming to the human soul but hopes that lottery money will come to this old house. You may spend a million to win a few dollars.

In the second or third grade, I played a lot of marbles. One evening I asked my mother to get me some more marbles. She asked what happened to the others. I said that I lost them.

How? she asked.

I said that we played for keeps. Then she said that is gambling. I will not let your dad buy you marbles to lose!

You might as well flush those dollars down the toilet, with “In God We Trust” on them, as to condone such gambling.

— F. DAVID CANDLER
Salisbury