Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-02-20
WORLD IS LACKING
IN PLAIN SINCERITY
"White Lies" Reveal Black Spots
in Character, Says William
7. Ellis
The International Sunday School Les
son For February % Is Faith De-
stroying Fear."-Luke 12:1-12.
(By William T. Ellis)

tBy William It. Ellls)
Looking out the window Mrs.
i Jones sees a neighbor approaching
and exclaims, There comes that
tiresome Mrs. Smith. l simply can't
endure her.
a moment later, at the door, she
says, with effusive smiles, My dear
Mrs. Smith. am so glad to see YOU;
and it is so good of YOU to come"
! And that is a picture of what is
fundamentally the matter with a
| large part of the world to-day. 1t
lacks common, ordinary, straightfor-
ward sincerity. Tho wisest of social
/ physicians once put label on this
disease SO deadly to souls. He called
it the leaven of the Pharisee, which
| is hypocrisy" Rottenness in the
! bones of character, functional disin-
teSration of the soul, palsy of the
! motor nerves of the will-all this
and more is the essential insincerity
which the compleXity of our social
| life fosters, and which Jesus excori-
ated in the Pharisees.
white lies" reveal black spots in
character. The reason the judgment
of mankind condemns a liar is not
| because of the lie itself, or its par
! ucular consequences but because it
denotes fundamental unsoundness. To
| be insincere is to be wrong clear
! through to the center of things. A
! hypocrite is worse than an open and
! shameless drunkard or gambler; for
his offense is not one of appetite or
peculiar weakness; it Is structural,
affecting the stability of the whole
! life
What Our Stenographers Think
| The business mans stenographer
| is. ifsone but stop to think of it, like
a piece of the day of Judgment TO
him. She knows all his artifices and
pretenses and double dealings, if he
! be not wholly straightforward. our
| children, too, see the difference be-
! tween what we really are or believe,
| in the frankness of the family circle,
| and what we pretend in the presence
! of company.
More important yet, as Jesus
/ pointed out, We are known through
and through to God There are no
| successful hypocrites in dealing with
Him. We may for a time fool q few
| persons, but not for a minute can we
deceive God. What is more. as Jesus
said, There is nothing covered up
! that shall not be revealed" Hypoc-
racy is as vain as 1t is vicious The
whole world one day comes to know
tho truth about us. Whether that
Z
dread is a fairly good symptom of the
sort of person we are.
When the lid is lifted from our
! life, as it some day will be, shall We
! be glad or terrified? The stern ut
! terance of the Master is a powerful
sermon upon living in the open sun
light. walk in the light" and you
! will never fear a policeman's tread
or a gosSip's tongue. A clean life Is
| tions hold no threat for the honest
man. Judgment days are the vindi-
cation of the righteous Beware OF
the leaven of the Pharisees, which Is
! hypocrisy" and you will welcome
every ray of sunlight. No truth
needs to be more strongly impressed
upon youth than this; the dying
Young man. keep your record
clean"
The Dare to- Die" Chinese
What a person fears most tells
what he is. Now these old Pharisees
were afraid that the public would
not think well of them. Had they
lived in our day the richest of them
would have employed press agents to
secure favorable mention for them in
the newspapers. They were afraid
for their regulations, forgetting that,
in the long run reputation is but an
emanation of character.
Some persons are scared of dying.
| Our artificial day has multiplied this
terror Do you recall how summer
cottagers fled from the Atlantic coast
when the approach of the Spanish
fleet was rumored? Without being
cynical it may be said that we are
attaching an entirely undue impor-
| tance to the mere matter of living.
| We have come to overvalue physical
safety and comfort An inspiration
during the Chinese revolution were
the "Dare-to- die bands of young
men, mostly students who volun-
teered for extra hazardous service.
They rightly perceived that their
own lives were of relative unimpor-
tance as compared with the freedom
of their nation This same reckless
! bravery, which put the assurance of
Paradise above all concerns of life or
safety, was what led the followers Of
| Mohammed to sweep onward in an