selves to near perfection. We are placed here for progress, the progress of the individual, and the progress of the race; for progress in our moral feelings, progress in ideas, and progress in institutions. Always must we forget the things which are behind, and reach forth to the things which are before, and press onward to the discovery of new truth, and upward to purer and serener regions of moral worth.

ART. II.

A DISCOURSE ON LYING. BY THE EDITOR.

“But — all liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.". - Revelation, xxi. 8.

WHAT the writer of the book called the Revelation meant by the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, I pretend not to determine. The probability is, that he used this lake as what he deemed the most fitting imagery to represent the torment which awaits, here or hereafter, those who are sinners in the greatest degree. He probably meant no more by it than that the punishment of such would be exceedingly severe. In order to be exceedingly severe, the severest that we can conceive, it need not be the result of material fire and brimstone. Spiritual tortures are altogether severer than any material tortures imaginable. The cruelest punishment you can inflict on the guilty is to make them see that they are guilty, and then leave them to the misery of their own reflections.

What will be, according to my text, the precise punishment of all liars, I therefore cannot undertake to say, nor do I, in fact, wish to say. I trouble myself very little about the punishment which awaits the wicked, either as to its quality or its quantity. That which, in my eyes, gives to sin its horror, and admon

ishes me to eschew it, is not the punishment it involves. It is not the suffering that it brings along with it, that makes it so revolting. To a mind rightly constituted it would still be full of horror, though it involved no suffering, either in this world or in that which is to come. It is enough that it is sin. Pain, however great it may be, if it be but coupled with a sense of right, we can endure without even a murmur; whether of body or mind, it unmans us only when we feel that we are wrong, that we have been false to ourselves, false to our friends, to our country, to our principles, to our race, to our God.

If

I do not, therefore, propose to speak of the punishment which awaits liars. I have introduced this passage from the Revelation merely because it appears to me to teach very clearly this much, to wit, that all liars are sinners. This is all that need be said. we have any just conceptions of true worth before God, we shall ask for no other reason for discontinuing or avoiding a given practice, than the simple fact that it is sinful. Lying, when shown to be a sin, is sufficiently condemned; and the mind that has any sense of rectitude will avoid it for that reason, and for that reason alone. The punishment which awaits the liar may be more or less intense; it may be the loss of character in the eyes of the world, it may be the loss of self-respect, the agony of unending remorse; or it may be the tortures of a literal lake of fire and brimstone; but the true reason for regarding it with horror is the simple fact, that it is sin, that it is contrary to the law of God, to that law written on the tablets of the human heart, as well as to that which we find engrossed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

It is of lying, and not of its peculiar punishment, that I propose to speak, of the sin rather than of its consequences; because it is always on the sin, rather than on its consequences, that I would fix my own attention or that of others. That lying is a sin, doubtless, all are ready to admit; and yet it is a sin

of very frequent occurrence. I apprehend that very few of us have any just conception of either its enormity or its frequency. We are not sufficiently careful to ascertain in what the lie actually consists. We regard it too often as consisting solely in the words we use, and we flatter ourselves that we are not guilty of it, when we have not put it into a form of words. We deceive, mislead people, and yet if the words we have used be literally true, we fancy we have not lied. The NewYork merchant, of whom they relate a certain anecdote, probably did not regard himself as a liar. The merchant had applied to an Insurance Office for a policy of insurance on a ship he had at sea, and which he was expecting soon to arrive. Some difference arising between him and the agent of the office, the policy was delayed until the merchant received news from his ship, that it and cargo were lost. He immediately sent his boy to notify the office, that if they had not made out the policy talked of, they need not do it, for he had heard from his ship. The office concluding from this, that the news he had heard were favorable, sent him word back that the policy was ready, and immediately made it out, and thus subjected itself to the loss of the ship and its cargo. Now what the merchant said was literally true, and yet it was a lie, because it was so said as naturally to deceive.

use.

The lie does not consist in the words we Elijah upbraiding the priests of Baal, and ridiculing them for their trust in that false god, said unto them, "Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked." The words here. used are false. What Elijah said was not true, and he did not believe it true; and yet he did not lie, because he did not intend to deceive, and because he did not deceive. He speaks ironically, and by so speaking discloses more clearly than he could in any other form of speech, the absurdity of worshipping a dumb idol as a god, or the creature in place of the Creator. So when we say of a fleet animal," he is

swift as the wind," or of a raiment remarkable for its whiteness, "it is whiter than snow," or of any extraordinary swiftness of motion, "it is quicker than lightning; we say what is literally false; but we are not liars, because there is no deception, and no intention of deception. The metaphors we use, the strong hyperboles we adopt, have their established value, and are understood in the same manner by both the speaker and the hearer.

The lie consists, so far as it concerns the liar, in the fact of his intending to deceive or mislead; in relation to others, it consists in the fact, that he does deceive or mislead. A man tells me no lie, if he in no way deceives me, or misleads me; but he is nevertheless a liar, if he intended to do it, and is as guilty as he would have been, had he deceived me. If he has intended to deceive me, or deceived me knowingly, although all his words strictly construed are true, he is just as much a liar, as though he had told me a plump falsehood, in just so many words.

I am pursuing a thief. I ask you which way he went. You say nothing, but you point your finger in a certain direction, which is the wrong one, and thus I am led to follow it. In this case you have lied to me, just as much as though you had told me in words, that the thief went in the direction, which you knew he had not gone. Words, actions, manners, no matter which or what, that do deceive, and are intended to deceive, or which are intended to deceive, whether they do deceive or not, are falsehoods, lies. Let no one then think that he has steered clear of the lie, because he has succeeded in using a form of words not literally false. Looks, manners, deeds, lie as well as words, and often more effectually.

The worst form of lying is not that which is generally the most censured. The common falsehoods, as to occurrences and events, are bad enough, but they are by no means the worst. Mere vulgar lying deserves contempt, and usually receives it; and very soon prevents the one who is guilty of it from doing

any harm, save to his own soul. His credit is soon gone, his want of honesty is soon found out, and henceforth he can deceive nobody, for nobody trusts him.

*

The worst species of lying are those not usually christened with that name. One instance of the worst sort of lying, on a large scale, has been witnessed during the current year. Many people have had in their hands small pieces of paper called Bank Bills, on which is a promise made by certain high-minded and honorable gentlemen, called the president and directors of the bank, to pay the bearer at their banking house, during banking hours, on demand, a certain amount of money. I need not say that this promise has for nearly a year, to say the least, been only a splendid lie, a lie, which the banks, the honorable. and high-minded president and directors, tell every time they issue their bills, or notes. And this is not all. Men of the highest standing in society, and the loudest in their pretensions to decency, intelligence, virtue, religion, have greatly applauded the lie; and grave senators in our own goodly city are daily discussing the matter, whether an end ought, or ought not, to be put to this lying; and the probability is that the majority will decide, that the public good demands its continuance. It is astonishing that a community, making some pretensions to being a moral and religious community, can tolerate, much more applaud such falsehood. Nothing can be more corrupting to the morals of our youth, or better calculated to banish truth and honesty from the land.

Communities, corporations, banks, copartnerships, are as much bound to tell the truth, as the simple indi

This discourse was written and preached in this city in the winter of 1837-8, while the Massachusetts Legislature were discussing the subject of the suspension and resumption of payments by the banks. The conduct of the banks, and more especially of the business community, during the summer of 1837, and the winter following, violating, as it did, all moral principle, and threatening the very existence of the republic by its general baseness, cannot be too frequently exhibited to the general abhorrence of mankind.