“After he has got his money, at first a man is bright and joyous; he shines with another’s splendour, and is conspicuous by his altered mode of life.  His table is lavish; his dress is most expensive.  His servants appear in finer liveries; he has flatterers and boon companions; his rooms are full of drones innumerable.  But the money slips away.  Time as it runs on adds the interest to its tale.  Now night brings him no rest; no day is joyous; no sun is bright; he is weary of his life; he hates the days that are hurrying on to the appointed period; he is afraid of the months, for they are parents of interest.  Even if he sleeps, he sees the lender in his slumbers—a bad dream—standing by his pillow.  If he wakes up, there is the anxiety and dread of the interest.  ‘The poor and the usurer,’ he exclaims, ‘meet together:  the Lord lighteneth both their eyes.’ Prov. xxix. 13, A.V. marg.  R.V. has “oppressor.”  The lender runs like a hound after the game.  The borrower like a ready prey crouches at the coming catastrophe, for his penury robs him of the power of speech.  Both have their ready-reckoner in their hands, the one congratulating himself as the interest mounts up, the other groaning at the growth of his calamities.  ‘Drink waters out of thine own cistern.’ Prov. v. 15.  Look, that is to say, at your own resources; do not approach other men’s springs; provide your comforts from your own reservoirs.  Have you household vessels, clothes, beast of burden, all kinds of furniture?  Sell these.  Rather surrender all than lose your liberty.  Ah, but—he rejoins—I am ashamed to put them up for sale.  What then do you think of another’s bringing them out a little later on, and crying your goods, and getting rid of them for next to nothing before your very eyes?  Do not go to another man’s door.  Verily ‘another man’s well is narrow.’ Prov. xxiii. 27, LXX.  Better is it to relieve your necessity gradually by one contrivance after another than after being all in a moment elated by another man’s means, afterwards to be stripped at once of everything.  If you have anything wherewith to pay, why do you not relieve your immediate difficulties out of these resources?  If you are insolvent, you are only trying to cure ill with ill.  Decline to be blockaded by an usurer.  Do not suffer yourself to be sought out and tracked down like another man’s game. ὥσπερ ἀλλότριον θήραμα.  Ed. Par. Vulg. ὥσπερ ἄλλο τι θήραμα.  Usury is the origin of lying; the beginning of ingratitude, unfairness, perjury.…