St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1900-09-12
THINGS THAT MAKE A TAN.
[By Robert E. Speer.]
TRUTH,

Truth first. No liar can be man.
For truthtulness itself is the greatest ee-
ment in every true man, truth in heart
and life, and it is the necessary founda-
ton OF every worthy quality. All men
instinct1vely recognize this, Our race
has a constitutional hatred of liars and
lies. "To give the lie" is the extremity
of reproach and condemnation. How
ever undeveloped the moral judgment of
children may be, they at once pronounce
lies bad. | once asked a company of
children at Bergen Point, New Jersey,
what kinds of sins there are. They at
once replied, "Good sins and bad SINS"
A little startled by their boldness and
comprehensivenes of this classification,
l asked them what were the worst of
bad sins. Lies" they instantly re-
piled.
Every boy and every man shuns liar
He carries with him the atmosphere OF
repulsion. Strong haters of lies are al
ways attractive to us. The spirit of
manliness responds to the strong loath-
ing of lie. 1t was largely on this &C
count that Charles Kingsley was so pop
ular. He detestcd shams, and hescorned
all lies. Some one gave him once a
Mental Photograph book in which to
write. One question was What is your
bette noire?" "A lie," he wrote. And
his wife dedicated her delightful biogra-
ply OF him
"To the beloved memory
of
A righteous man
Who loved God and truth above all things,
man of untarnished honor
Loyal and electromagnetic and strong
Modest and humble-tender and true
Pitiful to the INCORPORATING after the
erring-
Stern to all forms Of wrong and oppression,
Yet most stern toward himself
Who being angry yet sinned not
Some of the ancients saw as clearly on
this subject as we see. II will not stain
speech with a lie," said Pindar. "The
genuine lie is hated by all gods and
men," said Plato. THAT man has no
fair glory" said Theognis, "in whose
heart dwells lie, and from whose mouth
it has once issued" And though lying is
the great sin of heathenism. many among
the heather recognize, theoretically at
least, its debasing loathsomeness. There
is a Hindoo saying that The sin OF kill
ling Brahmin is as great as that OF
killing one hundred cows, and the sin OF
killing one hundred cows is as great as
that of killing woman, and the sin OF
killing one hundred women is as great as
that of killing a child in the womb, and
the sin of killing one hundred children in
the womb is as great as that OF telling a
lie"
In this matter, as might be expected
the Bible is outspoken and explicit. "Ye
shall not lie one to another" said the
Levitical code. One of the Ten Com
mandments is a law against falsehood.
"a poor man is better than liar,' was
the Oriental phrasing OF one of the Prov
cribs. "Lie not to one another wrote
Paul to the Colossians.
lie is always sinful and wrong.
There are no circumstances in which it is
justi6able. God cannot lie, and what
God himself cannot do, no man can ever
be justified in doing. All lies are of the
devil who is the father of lies, and every
mau who lies shows himself to be, in
that course, the child of the father OF
lies and not of the Father OF Light, with
whom is neither variabeness nor shadow
of turning.
Men can lie by life and conduct as we'll
as by lip and word. Truthfulness is far
more than a quality of speech. The man
who would be a man must be true
through and through. There must be
truth in the inward parts, and all the
outer expression of the inner life must be
true. He must be true to the traditions
| of the past, to the responsibilities involv,
ed in the relationship he bears to home
and loved ones. He must be true tc
himself. AS Polonius said to his sor
Laertes:
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man,
He must be true to the great, weary
world which needs his unselhsh service
Young men are false and in the bases
sense untrue if they work i'll this worlt
for their own ends and do not work IL
this world for the ends of Christ. TIT
man who tries to see how much he cal
get out OF the world instead of how
much he can give to it, who is here to-
gain rather than for use is an untrn
man. The man after Gods own hear
will be true to Gods Son and God
world, and he will discover at last tina
so, and so only, was he true to himself.
For into that Great City where tn
true men are to gather, no liar, nor an.
man that maketh lie, is to be allowe
to enter, but only those who have ueve
feared the face or the gaze of any mar
and who will not fear the searchin
judgment of God, because they hear
and needed the solemn lesson OF Tn