They are (up to the amount of the currency) simply creditors and debtors — the commercial types of the two great sects of humanity which those words describe; for debt and credit are of course merely the mercantile forms of the words "duty" and "creed", which give the central ideas: only it is more accurate to say "faith" than "creed", because creed has been applied carelessly to more forms of words. Duty properly signifies whatever in substance or act one person owes to another, and faith the other's trust in his rendering it. The French "devoir" and "foi" are fuller and clearer words than ours; for, faith being the passive of fact, foi comes straight through fides from fio; and the French keep the group of words formed from the infinitive—fieri, "se fier", "se défier", "défiance", and the grand following "défi". Our English "affiance", "defiance", "confidence", "diffidence", retain accurate meanings; but our "faithful" has become obscure, from being used for "faithworthy" as well as "full of faith". "His name that sat on him was called Faithful and True".
Trust is the passive of true saying, as faith is the passive of due doing; and the right learning of these etymologies, which are in the strictest sense only to be learned "by heart", is of considerably more importance to the youth of a nation than its reading and ciphering.