Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-11-29
EVERYDAY LYING.
A NEW YORK PREACHERS OPINIONS OF
POLITE SOCIETY, TRADE AND
POLITICS.

POLITICS.
New York Sun.
Rev. DR.. E. C. Bolles, pastor of the
Third Unitarian Church on West Elev-
enth street, preached recently on the
question SIS a Lie Ever Right?" DR..
Bolles said he presumed the people had
come to hear him decide the right and
wrong of lying to screen criminals,
cheer the sick, suppress unnecessary
scandal, shield honesty from fraud and
innocence from vice. But he wasn't 60
ing to touch any such hair-splitting
points. They had best be left to every
mans conscience and common sense
when the emergency came. Nobody
would say that war is not an unmitga-
ted wrong, and yet emergencies came in
every nations life when it was necessa-
~ to slay ones fellow men. There
might be emergencies in any mans life.
He would talk of the lies of everyday
life.
81 denounce," said he, 'the social lie,
the lie of a life veneered and warm
ished with the politeness and fash
ion of the world; the lies men live
and the lies men tell to make life easy,
society pleasant and the wheels of ex-
istence smooth running. The lies men
live are worse than those they tell. The
great lie of a life is to live beyond ones
means, to keep up appearances, as the
phrase goes; to assume a position one
does not earn; to form relationships one
is not entitled to; to spread examples
that are lies, and eventually to defraud
creditors who would never have become
creditors except for the lie that the man
has lived.
''No life in the universe is so hollow
as the life of polite and fashionable sOci
ETY.. In no life is there more falseness,
less honor, more palliations, more moral
rottenness. There is more honor among
thieves than in the parlors of New Y ork,
more truth among gamblers and more
honesty among sharpers than among
polite and the most fashionable. To
prevent unpleasant truths from coming
up, to make things go, to lubricate the
social machinery-for these reasons So
cial lies are told and acted, and the re-
suit is that society's ideals are bad and
its methods false. The truth told in a
drawing room is like breath of pure
air in an atmosphere of fevers and asth-
mas. Is social life ever right and health
full? one involuntarily asks. If we could
have honesty there it might be.
"Another every day lie is the COM
mercial lie, the profitable, money
making lie. Is there ever any justifica-
ton for it?. The plea is made every
day that in these days of competition it
is impossible to get along without COM
plying with the general custom of COM
mercial lying. Men say they can't get
to the top and be honest with their
competitors. 1 should be sorry to think
the flower of our civilization so poison
Gus, so obnoxious as that. But, if it is
true, one can better afford not to get
at the top than to lie. 1t is not neces-
sary to to be rich. 1t is necessary to tell
the truth.
"Now comes the most provoking of
all lies. 1t seems strange that in this
Christian church, city and country-a
country ruled by religion which stands
for eternal truth-we should have to
speak of political lies. Men labor under
strange delusions in these enlightened
times. They think they can cover their
personality under the flag of hall, party
or committee. But they can't. Back
of every slander, every lie told to pander
to the lower elements, every trick, every
rascality, every editorial and stump
speech which does not deal in truth,
there stands man. He may think him
self hidden, but he isn't. Because 'ev-
erybody else lies is no excuse. For ev-
cry deed there is a responsibility, and
the arrows of God are surer than those
of men,"