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exhorting, 2d Corinthians, 1st Chap., verse 23, declares: "Moreover I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth."

Here the great Apostle assigns tenderness for his delay hitherto in visiting Corinth, and calls upon God as a witness for those feelings which otherwise would have justified severe and condign punishment; and those who dare pronounce this appeal as a justification for calling on the name of the Deity as a prop or support in trifling allegations, I neither crave their hearts nor their brains.

Although all persons indulging in sinful practices are heinous or offensive in the sight of good and virtuous men, still some are more to be dreaded that others, on account of the difficulty to unvail or expose their native deformity, and thereby avert those evils which more or less must flow through the best guarded and well regulated ranks of any society.

The liar, therefore, has even been considered a greater pest than the thief, for against the depredations of the latter we can in no inconsiderable degree fortify and secure ourselves by bolts and bars; but against the former we have no certainty of one moment's security, for the liar who has forfeited all confidence in his fellow man cannot be trusted or believed with safety even when he speaks the truth, and self-interest, which so powerfully directs every other reigning human passion, appears to have lost its force or influence on the lips of a liar, who not unfrequently evades the truth when it would have better subserved his interest. "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but they that deal truly are his delight."-Prov. xii. 22.

And so strong has the passion of lying influenced the conduct and career of some men, that not a few have attempted to offer "Charity" as an apology for this first great sin, as introduced in our world by his Satanic majesty, and at the present day practiced by all his votaries, saying it is constitutional, and therefore it cannot be avoided. When I say charity has entered this plea in behalf of the liar, I wish to be understood as giving the assertion from those of other lips, that of charity herself—whose unbounded love for everything that is good and excellent, constrains her to bear heavy burthens, still she can never shield or sanction a sin which is in direct

opposition to the very nature and essence of that being for whom she stands pre-eminently acknowledged as one of his brightest attributes.

CHAPTER VIII.

IN commencing this little work the author designed to base all his views directly or indirectly upon the Bible, without embracing any particular dogma or creed held at the present day by any sect or religious denomination, and although we find children at a very tender age practising and indulging in the awful sin of lying, I am constrained to believe that it is more the result of an improper training, or course growing out of natural reprobation.

The force of example is greatly increased by the tie of consanguinity or blood relationship; hence those practices which are pursued by parents (as named in a former part of this work,) are generally imitated by their children, without loss or diminution of strength, and fathers and mothers who do not at all times in their daily walk and conversation practice a scrupulous and sacred regard for. truth, or on the contrary occasionally equivocating and prevaricating, must, as a natural consequence, kindle up an unhallowed passion for lying in the bosom of their offspring, which nothing but the grace of God could extinguish, although severe and condign punishment should be inflicted upon the little offender.

To better illustrate the baneful and pernicious consequence growing out of equivocations and prevarications. by parents on the mind of their offspring, I beg leave to suppose a few not unusual cases as practiced particularly in cities or incorporated towns by the higher (as they would be styled) circle of society. Mrs. A, who in her domestic avocations, like the lark had sprightly hailed the morn, proposes, about 10 o'clock in the morning, to do herself the pleasure of calling on Mrs. B; the latter beholding from her window the arrival of the former, and conscious that not only her own dress, but almost every de

partment of her household were in a disordered state from a want of seasonable attention, directs a son or daughter to go to the door and say, "Mrs. A, mamma is not in, just stepped out to do a little shopping." The child returns to its mother and informs her that her orders were obeyed and Mrs. A had left the door, upon which Mrs. B compliments her child's obedience, and declares although she was not out shopping it was so soon her intention to leave, that was the same thing as to be absent at the present time.

Again, a father who is in the habit of attending political caucuses, or drinking, getting himself often intoxicated at a late hour of the night, by too free a. use of whiskey-punch around a billiard or card-table, has frequently, to his great annoyance, been disturbed in his sleep, about 10 o'clock in the morning, by one of his children stating that there was a gentleman down stairs in the parlor who wished to speak to him. "Say," says the half-recovered inebriate, "I am not at home." The child here, as before, obeys, conscienciously believing, from its improper training, that in so doing it but fulfills that commandment of the great apostle, which says, in Corinthians, 3d chapter, 20th verse," Children obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord."

In presenting this sacred text to the eye of a child, the parent or guardian should so teach as to show that the apostle only alluded to such obedience as was in strict accordance with the divine will of our Heavenly Father, who cannot sanction, from his very nature, any statement which even approximates to falsehood, from the lips of any of his creatures. But to return to the earthly father now in question, whom, we will suppose, about two hours after issuing from his bed-room, rises from his couch, and from thence to his parlor or sitting-room, where not an unfrequent dialogue commences between himself and son, about ten years old.

FATHER.-Who was the gentleman desiring to see me, this morning?

SON.-Not able to say, sir.

FATHER. Did you say to him, as by me directed, that I was not at home?

SON.-Yes, sir.

FATHER.-That was right; for I was not in to see him, and as I intend, after sipping a cup of coffee and partaking of a piece of toast, to walk down to the City Hotel, that will amount in substance as if I was out when he called.

I will barely mention one or two cases more of equivocations and prevarications by parents before their children, as practised in the country circles, out of hundreds which might be cited. Mrs. Doe sends her daughter, about eight years old, over to her neighbor, Mrs. Roe, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, requesting the loan of about a quarter of an ounce of tea, which she would return tomorrow morning, from a pound she expected from Mr. Upham's store. The message is delivered by the little girl at the door, to one of Mrs. Roe's daughters, of a like age, or perhaps older, who promptly carries the same to her mother, who directs an answer to be returned that she had that very morning consumed the last grain contained in her canister. The daughter of Mrs. Roe, conscious that her father had just returned from the store with a fresh supply of tea, reminds her mother of the fact, who, whether arising from the want of punctuality on the part of the borrower, or a disposition not to accommodate, sternly directs her daughter to obey without further altercation, and what she had said about the emptiness of the canister was true, and as respects the fresh supply, that was not yet unpacked.

Fourthly, we will suppose a poor man endeavoring to cultivate half an acre of maize or Indian corn, and applying to a rich neighbor for one of his three horses wherewith to plow his small lot of growing corn, is assured by the wealthy neighbor that two of his horses were in use, and the third, old Jack, in leaping a certain fence last week, had severely scarified and bruised one of his fore legs, causing him not only to become very lame, but unfit for use, from all of which he regretted to say, he could not grant the request, and the poor man returned home in despair, regarding a seasonable attention to his maize.

The rich man had a son about seven years old present at the time the horse was requested and refused, and when the poor man was beyond hearing, addressed his father in a very feeling and tender manner, asking why he did not let the applicant have old Jack, as he knew

he had recovered from his lameness, and had worked him with ease for the last two days. The father replied that what he had said was true at the time, and even subsequent to the day on which the leg of the horse was afflicted.

The foregoing subterfuges are not merely the work of fancied imagination, but founded upon awful truths, which daily observation of the practices pursued by equivocating and prevaricating parents before their children, who, now on the line of progression, soon acquire a thirst for the most atrocious and abominable falsehoods, even to the perpetration of perjury.

Perhaps sufficient has been said under this head, but I beg leave to mention one other prolific source from which parents train up their children to become liars. I allude to the infliction of severe and condign punishment for an act generally understood by the term accident; a word defined by some lexicographers as "happening without a cause," while others contend that all acts of men are the direct and legitimate offspring of a procuring cause, or in other words, 66 a creating something." Without intending to place myself in the arena, or mere place of disputation, I simply wish to be understood as alluding to punishment of a child for breaking a plate, bowl, saucer, (not sasser) or cup-letting basins of milk fall out of its hands, or driving a horse and wagon down a precipice, severely wounding the former, and nearly destroying the latter, which act or acts, to suppose intentional, would be a tacit acknowledgment that the child was insane; it would be more charitable to believe the occurrence originated from carelessness or want of mature judgment, in which latter case it would have been far better for the parent to instruct the child how it might have been avoided, and in future prevent a similar occurrencewhereas, without such advice or counsel, a repetition might follow, and the child, from fear, tell a lie to screen itself from punishment.

In recommending here the withholding of the rod, I trust I shall not be understood after gentle means have proved unsuccessful.

And as many children, when arraigned under a charge of falsehood, substantially authenticated, criminate an innocent third person in hopes of obtaining an acquittal,

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