Connecticut western news., 1882-09-27
HONESTY AS A POLICY.
The Rev. Dr. ColIyer on the Insin- cerity of Some Religious Appear. ances-Our National Currency.


 ''An honest and good heart," Luke, viii, 15. This was the text chosen by the Rev. Dr. Collyer for his Sunday morning discourse in the Church of the Messiah. The preacher began:-"It is said that Numa built temple in the early days of Rome and appointed solemn worship in it to this end-that | men might learn to speak and act i honestly And have wondered now and then whether this might not still be the primal purpose for which all established by those who would stand for the living truth and the truest life in our Christian lands, and whether all our creeds and confessions should not begin with this article:-I believe in ultimate and absolute honestly So that when we build a church of any name it shall be the instance of all honesty in the building and shall stand as firm as it's foundations after 700 years as on the day of its dedication. When we collect
 
 above all things that so far as our knowledge will serve us no man shall help us out of his ungodly gains, as the Bishop of Manchester said, to pave his way to heaven. In the conception we can all form of ultimate and absolute honesty this is more essential than 1t is to build the church-that it shall be ] done by honest men. If this church of my day dreams wanted to blazon texts over it's pulpit and along its walls these would be the texts:-Let us walk honestly as the day; provide things honest in the sight of all men.
 "I have wondered what better things we could do for our great schools and universities than to establish chair ill each of them and call a master whose business it should be to teach not ethics, let us say, but honesty, and not the theory. but the thing as it lies among the deep foundations of our human life and tips all the pinnacles. A man who would nourish noble impatience on the proverb on which we seem to set such store-that honesty is the best policy - and say, with Archbishop Whately, he who acts on that principle alone is not an honest man. Who would meet the question squarely which is springing like an evil weed in the heart of the youth of our time (and of most times, for that matter, that I ever read oD-s Gan 8 man live and prosper who will onlp tolerate this ultimate and
 absolute honesty ? Meet the question squarely and say, 'I cannot promise
 what you would call prosperity but il you cannot live honestly in this world. you had better die and go to another and your going on those terms will bt all the proof you need that you will gel ) there.'"
 l After adverting to the influence sucl
 teacher would have upon youths il
 inspiring them with the belief that ar
 honest mans the noblest work of God
 the reverend gentleman continued:- . Nor can I doubt what ground one should take to show that such a pur pose as this pushed to the front in oul schools and churches, and in our homes
 also must be of the purest and mos pregnant worth. It could not be tho
 ground that the lack of honesty in wort
 and deed is shaking our modern life tt it's foundations, or that the disease 0 . dishonesty, ftful once and abnormal
 has now become chronic and threatens !, in no long time, to become plague
 The true ground to take is tn positive, that ultimate honesty is thu solution of the problem. What shall w
 do to be saved from this curse and pligh
 of insincerity in word and deed? It :, so primal and essential that your abl ' burglars will still have honest pistol
 and rifles, and when such men propos D to break your bank they get tools S
 good that they shame most of those use
 by honest men.
 If, again, it is mere fraud in ninetee , cases out of twenty the man who take
 away your wealth by wholesale is ar F. to be marked among his neighbors fo o piety and usefulness. He superintend a Sunday school he can talk in th ;, meetings like saint he is deacon V his church he is most generous of a v T, men in his giving, especially to th - things that are reported in the papers i. io He is of the pattern of one of the man' ,, gers of that great bank in Glasgow who robbed thousands of widows an 7. orphans but gave $40, ,00O to the Lord N. These men and all their kind dress then r- selves in the pure and spotless robes h an honesty which surpasses before the " can take the plunder, and in piet n, which may not be questioned; 1t is tt in only way open to their purpose.
 Shall we turn to the things that a1
 of the most primal moment to us as
 nation, we insist on this ultimate ar
 abs olute honesty as their first cond
 tion. Take our gold as it comes fro as the mint-the ultimate standard D, values. We never question the weigl 'o of the alloy, but if it should be debase IS by single grain by any party in powe n. there would be revolution. The natic re says in this final token of its integri re what Theodoric the great said when 8 9o vised by his Cabinet to debase the CO IS of his realm "That which bears n 70 image must not lie." Take our pape s' The reason why we can get all tl 'h money we want at so low 8 rate is tn Tt there can be no question any long D. about their honest face. We ha' ae fought that battle and won it. So gre es is this honesty that, like our love,