; advantages over all the fine and artificial ways of dissimulation and deceit; it is much the plainer and easier, much the safer and most secure way of dealing in the world; it has less of trouble and difficulty, of entanglement and perplexity, of danger and hazard in it; it is the shortest and nearest way to our end, carrying us thither in a straight line, and will hold out and last longest. The arts of deceit and cunning do continually grow weaker, and less effectual and serviceable, to them that use them: whereas integrity gains strength by use; and the more and longer any man practiseth it, the greater service it does him, by confirming his reputation, and encouraging those with whom he hath to do to repose the greatest trust and confidence in him which is an unspeakable advantage in the business and affairs of life. Truth is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out it is always near at hand, and sits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack, and one trick needs a great many more to make it good. It is like building upon a false foundation, which continually stands in need of props to shore it up, and proves at last more chargeable than to have raised a substantial building at first upon a true and solid foundation for sincerity is firm and substantial, and there is nothing hollow or unsound in it, and, because it is plain and open, fears no discovery, of which the crafty man is always in danger; and when he thinks he walks in the dark, all his pretences are so transparent, that he that runs may read them. He is the last man that finds himself to be found out; and whilst he takes it for granted that he makes fools of others, he renders himself ridiculous. Add to all this, that sincerity is the most compendious wisdom, and an excellent instrument for the speedy despatch of business; it creates confidence in those we have to deal with, saves the labour of many inquiries, and brings things to an issue in few words; it is like travelling in a plain beaten road, which commonly brings a man sooner to his journey's end than by-ways, in which men often lose themselves. In a word, whatsoever convenience may be thought to be in falsehood and dissimulation, it is soon over; but the inconvenience of it is perpetual, because it brings a man under an everlasting jealousy and suspicion, so that he is not believed when he speaks truth, nor trusted, perhaps, when he means honestly. When a man has once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, he is set fast, and nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood. And I have often thought that God hath, in His great wisdom, hid from men of false and dishonest minds the wonderful advantages of truth and integrity to the prosperity even of our worldly affairs. These men are so blinded by their covetousness and ambition, that they cannot look beyond a present advantage, nor forbear to seize upon it, though by ways never so indirect, they cannot see so far as to the remote consequences of a steady integrity, and the vast benefit and advantages which it will bring a man at last. Were but this sort of men wise and clear-sighted enough to discern this, they would be honest out of very knavery, not out of any love to honesty and virtue, but a crafty design to promote and advance more effectually their own interests; and, therefore, the justice of the Divine Providence hath hid this truest point of wisdom from their eyes, that bad men might not be upon equal terms with the just and upright, and serve their own wicked designs by honest and lawful means. Indeed, if a man were only to deal in the world for a day, and should never have occasion to converse more with mankind, never more need their good opinion or good word, it were then no great matter (speaking as to the concernments of this world) if a man spend his reputation all at once, and ventured it at a throw; but if he be to continue in the world, and would have the advantage of conversation whilst he is in it, let him make use of truth and sincerity in all his words and actions, for nothing but this will last and hold out to the end: all other arts will fail; but truth and integrity will carry a man through, and bear him out to the last.-TILLOTSON. It LYING is so ill a quality, and the mother of so many ill ones that spawn from it, and take shelter under it, that a child should be brought up in the greatest abhorrence of it imaginable. should be always (when occasionally it comes to be mentioned) spoken of before him with the utmost detestation, as a quality so wholly inconsistent with the name and character of a gentleman, that nobody of any credit can bear the imputation of a lie—a mark that is judged the utmost disgrace, which debases a man to the lowest degree of a shameful meanness, and ranks him with the most contemptible part of mankind, and the abhorred rascality; and is not to be endured in any one who would converse with people of condition, or have any esteem or reputation in the world. The first time he is found in a lie, it should rather be wondered at as a monstrous thing in him, than reproved as an ordinary fault. If that keeps him not from relapsing, the next time he must be sharply rebuked, and fall into the state of great displeasure of his father and mother, and all about him who take notice of it. And if this way work not the cure, you must come to blows; for after he has been thus warned, a premeditated lie must always be looked upon as obstinacy, and never be permitted to escape unpunished. Children, afraid to have their faults seen in their naked colour, will, like the rest of the sons of Adam, be apt to make excuses. This is a fault usually bordering upon, and leading to, untruth, and is not to be indulged in them; but yet it ought to be cured rather with shame than roughness. If, therefore, when a child is questioned for anything, his first answer be an excuse, warn him soberly to tell the truth; and then if he persist to shuffle it off with a falsehood, he must be chastised; but if he directly confess, you must commend his ingenuity, and pardon the fault, be it what it will, and pardon it so, that you never so much as reproach him with it, or mention it to him again; for if you would have him in love with ingenuity, and by a constant practice make it habitual to him, you must take care that it never procure him the least inconvenience; but, on the contrary, his own confession bringing always with it perfect impunity, should be besides encouraged by some marks of approbation. If his excuse be such at any time, that you cannot prove it to have any falsehood in it, let it pass for true, and be sure not to show any suspicion of it. Let him keep up his reputation as high as is possible; for when once he finds he has lost that, you have lost a great and your best hold upon him. Therefore let him not think he has the character of a liar with you, as long as you can avoid it without flattering him in it. But after he has once been corrected for a lie, you must be sure never after to pardon it in him, whenever you find and take notice to him that he is guilty of it; for it being a fault, which he has been forbid, and may, unless he be wilful, avoid, the repeating of it is perfect perverseness, and must have the chastisement due to that offence.— LOCKE's Thoughts on Education.' You must be aware of stumbling over a propensity which easily besets you from the habit of not having your time fully employed -I mean what the women very expressively call dawdling. Your motto must be Hoc age. Do instantly whatever is to be done and take the hours of reflection or recreation after business, 1 and never before it. When a regiment is under march, the rear is often thrown into confusion because the front do not move steadily and without interruption. It is the same thing with business. If that which is first in hand is not instantly, steadily, and regularly despatched, other things accumulate behind till affairs begin to press all at once, and no human brain can stand the confusion. Pray mind this-it is one of your few weak points; a habit of the mind it is which is very apt to beset men of intellect and talent, especially when their time is not regularly filled up, but left at their own arrangement. But it is like the ivy round the oak, and ends by limiting, if it does not destroy, the power of manly and necessary exertion. I must love a man so well to whom I offer such a word of advice, that I will not apologise for it, but expect you are to become as regular. -SCOTT. 1. "Do this;" i. e., attend to one thing at a time. ALAS! we know very well that Ideals can never be completely embodied in practice. Ideals must ever lie a very great way off, and we will right thankfully content ourselves with any not intolerable approximation thereto! Let no man, as Schiller says, too querulously "measure by a scale of perfection the meagre product of reality" in this poor world of ours. We will esteem him no wise man; we will esteem him a sickly, discontented, foolish man. And yet, on the other hand, it is never to be forgotten that ideals do exist; that if they be not approximated to at all the whole matter goes to wreck! Infallibly. No bricklayer builds a wall perfectly perpendicular, mathematically this is not possible; a certain degree of perpendicularity suffices him; and he, like a good bricklayer, who must have done with his job, leaves it so. And yet, if he sway too much from the perpendicular, above all, if he throw plummet1 and level quite away from him, and pile brick on brick heedless, just as it comes to hand, such bricklayer, I think, is in a bad way. He has forgotten himself; but the law of gravitation does not forget to act on him; he and his wall rush down into confused welter of ruins!-CARLYLE. 1. Plumb-line, or plummet, is a heavy | the purpose of indicating the perpendibody, usually a piece of lead (Lat. plum- cular to the horizon. bum), suspended by a flexible thread, for WE should be giving an intelligible sense to this clause if we took heaven in its simplest, most outward sense, as synonymous with what we call the heavenly bodies, and if we supposed the prayer to be that as all these silently and calmly obey the law which was given them on the first day, so the voluntary creatures of God, who have set his will at nought, might be brought into a submission as complete, into an order as unbroken and harmonious. There would be a deep significance in such a petition, though we should need great caution to prevent it from turning into the most unchristian and dreadful of all desiresthe desire to be free from responsibility, to lose our wills, to become mere natural creatures. And I do not think any one who has prayed the Lord's Prayer ever rested in this interpretation, even if it might be cherished for a moment. The general feeling of Christian people has been that this will is done in heaven, not by blind agents, but by intelligent, spiritual creatures; by wills which might have fallen, but which stood in holy, cheerful obedience.-MAURICE On the Lord's Prayer.' WHAT IS MAN? O, WHAT is man, great Maker of mankind! Except, like thee, it should be infinite. But it exceeds man's thoughts, to think how high And are astonished when they view the same. |