The Topeka state journal., 1905-12-03

could form a perspective, before those
little eyes of yours could distinguish
between night and day, she told the
women who came to kiss you, ana
nuss you UP, and make you generally
feel like a mouse IN q cats paw that
you knew them, and were glad to have
Them ~c0mes that you liked each par
ticular one better than the other. she
told them of the wonders of your vocal
performances that you eOulQ already
hum "Cavaderd Rusteana-,' and she
offered to prove it by playing a@chOrd
on the piano, but neglected the proof
by saying that "tle poor dear IS so
sleepy" So yoIr started in an Amos
phere of latituCGnOus untruth, on your
mothers side; and your father2 Did
he ignore. yOus or did he smile an as
sent to all those things he knew to be
untrue?
When you began to lisp. and the
faculty of imitation came to you, you
let the family skeleton out OF the bag
before company, and you were chided.
You were told that you must not re
peat TO others the family secrets. When
you babbled out your frank opinions
in your innocence. YOU were urgently
warned that you must be nice to peo-
pie and say pretty things to them,
whether you liked them or not. You
were taught your first lesson in deceit,
early, weren't yous that lesson which
as your mind developed was more and
more impressed upon you, until you
were graduated from the nursery to
the kindergarten with a diploma in
diplomatic falsehoOd. and from the
kindergarten you received your degree
as an Ananias par excellence.
You can easily trace the develop
ment Of your faculties along this line
as you pass over the stages of your
earth journey from youth onward, Mr..
smith. You gradually grew to ignore
your own deceit. 1T came as a part of
the daily routine of life, until in your
own egotism you began to admit to
better
than most others around you. You
would not deliberately tell a lie in so
many words; yOu would not let the
freaks of your Imagination loose upon
your friends to play wild havoc with
the established order of things, but
you lived lie i'm every moment of
your daily life, didn't you2 And are
doing it today, unless Won are a cave
dWeller or an outeast from that world
which wages its unhOlS=and desperate
strife about you and carries you along
like Nrec<age on the waves of an un-
controlled sea.
In the beginning when the simple
life was the only life. when man walked
in the tabled garden, or climbed in the
trees with his brothers in crime, when
he committed burglary upon nature to
supply the cravings of appetite, and
received from the suns warm glow the
heat which is life itself. there. may
have been no falsehoods = but with the
beginning of barter and trade there
social degeneracy. We learned the les
son early in the history Of the race.
r We have developed it. until it is a freu-
zied danger which places us near the
brink OF precipiees the depths OF
which we can no more fathom than we
can the limitiess space Of the heavens
Now it is not the cause. but the ef-
1ect OF further prosfess along this line
of conscience depravfty which we have
most to deal with, and most to fear II
IS not possible for any man to live an
honest life todayi He Is a tissue OF
1alsehood. a mass Of deceit which ran
Eles in the nostrils of every other mar
who has penetrated his vanished eE.
terror. What would happen If youI
by act and deed He is, perhaps as
good q man as any you know. yet he
is q colossal lie.
There is a story of q. physician who
started out one morning vOWing tg
himself 70 tell the truth to all and
spare none Enjoying a wide practice
I'm g community Waleh Wagged alOng
that morning a most highly thought-o-
man. He was called to the bedside O.
q DYING man. a man OF high finance
whose charities had made his name hi
monument. This man had shown onll
his exterior TO the world. and the worI'
liked the picture. II had never Iooket
behind the canvas. An Ili-spent life o
Fis~ination had sapped the vfgor Of hi
physical BODY. and lying on his bed o
main ne eon6ded a story Of crime in tn
accumulation of his gold That startlei
~ Ffe Indecent immeusity That SOM
seneetfonal last words were snoken bl
fhfs community god his friends wer
aware. The physician laid bare tn