against the Lord, and against His Anointed, saying, Let us break Their bands asunder, and cast away Their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision " (Ps. ii. 1-4),—or, as inspired Isaiah revealed to King Hezekiah: "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Whereas thou hast prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria: this is the word which the Lord hath spoken concerning him; The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee. Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against Whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.... Because thy rage against Me, and thy tumult, is come up into Mine ears, therefore will I put My hook in thy nose, and My bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest" (Is. xxxvii. 21-29).

On the contrary, words find man so vulnerable as in great measure to lie at their mercy :

they may distil as dew, or, on the other hand, bite like adders or pierce like swords.

The serpent by flattering speech beguiled Eve, and through her ruined mankind (Gen. iii.). Babel was founded with a boast which the confusion of tongues turned to folly (xi. 1-9). Rebekah's fond exclamation "Upon me be thy curse, my son " was powerless to shield Jacob from the temporal retribution which overtook him for following her advice (xxvii.). The unadvised words of Moses, uttered as it would seem in a moment of faithless impatience, excluded him from the promised land (Num. xx. 1-13; Ps. cvi. 32, 33). The men of Ephraim threatened and sneered at Jephthah and his Gileadites, who having overcome them detected some of their fugitives by a mispronunciation and slew them (Judges xii. 1-6). Delilah's treacherous urgency wrung from Samson the avowal which destroyed him (xvi. 15-21). Eli's feeble remonstrance neither cleared his own soul from responsibility nor saved his sons (1 Sam. ii. 22-34, iv. 3-11). The words of a popular

song set Saul rancorously against David (xviii. 6-9). Nabal's churlish answer would have cost him and his dear, but for Abigail's tact: even as it was, he died (xxv. 4-38). Absalom by insidious speeches stole the hearts of the men of Israel, yet in the long run his own life paid the forfeit (2 Sam. xv. 1-6, xviii. 6-15). Besotted counsel and an arrogant answer dethroned Rehoboam (1 Kings xii. 1-19). The Man of God from Judah was slain by his fellow prophet's lie (xiii. 7–26). Naboth and his sons perished by false witness, but were avenged on the bodies of two kings (xxi. 1-19, xxii. 37, 38; 2 Kings ix. 21-26). Greed and lies secured leprosy for Gehazi and his heirs (2 Kings v. 20-27). A certain cavilling lord was shown the truth, but at cost of his life (vii. 1, 2, 17–20). The impious accusers of Daniel themselves fell into the pit prepared for him (Dan. vi. 4-24). Haman's murderous slander recoiled on himself, his ten sons, and the people they dwelt among (Esther iii. 8-11, vii., ix. 1–16).

Still, what the Ninth Commandment ex

pressly forbids is false witness; and by no means all the above instances, however reprehensible on other grounds, or disastrous in their results, are tainted by verbal falsehood. Yet are they one and all in a measure false, inasmuch as they are spoken (so to say) from a false point of view; so that what influence they exert tends in the direction of error and not of truth.

Not to dwell on the very obvious instances: -the builders of Babel laid their plans as if man could both propose and dispose; Rebekah volunteered a guarantee she lacked power to make good; Moses omitted that witness to God's Perfection which he owed both to God and man; Ephraim's vain threats were confuted by defeat, and by a sort of irony a mispronounced word helped to cut off the fugitives; Samson's fond weakness set up a false comparative standard between things earthly and heavenly, as though a woman's importunity could outweigh a Divine command; Eli by not exerting his HighPriestly or Judicial prerogative to coerce and punish, gave the lie to his own words of rebuke;

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"Saul's thousands and David's ten thousands," though (I suppose) a blameless instance, may yet serve to impress upon us the danger of exaggeration; Nabal's railing words were unjust as well as ungenerous; king and counsellors alike mistook and misstated the relative strength of throne and nation, when Rehoboam defied his subjects; Daniel's accusers behaved as if God Almighty were of less account than an earthly monarch, as, indeed, they had already done when inducing Darius to frame his impious decree.

False witness, even in a strict sense, may moreover be borne by conduct or silence as emphatically as by words. All men at all moments cannot but be witnesses for or against the Right, which is another name for the Truth; and they are so to the inevitable and incalculable help or hindrance of their neighbour. Whence it follows that daily life even without one word spoken may set at nought the Ninth Commandment as genuinely as any defamatory oration or perjured oath or skulking slander.

On the last morning of His most holy life our