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Page 16
Yet such people as these often deserve pity as much as blame: they are,
perhaps, unconscious of the degree in which habit has made them
insensible to the perversion of truth in their statements; and even now
they scarcely believe that what seems to them so true should appear and
really be false to others. The intellectual effects of such habits are
equally injurious with the moral ones. All natural clearness and
distinctness of intellect becomes gradually obscured; the memory becomes
perplexed; the very style of writing acquires the taint of the
perverted mind. Truth is impressed upon every line of Dr. Arnold's
vigorous diction, while other writers of equal, perhaps, but less
respectable eminence, betray, even in their mode of expression, the
habitual want of honesty in their character and in their statements.
In your case, none of the habits of which I have spoken are, as yet,
firmly implanted. A warm temper, ardent feelings, and a vivid
imagination are, as yet, the only causes of your errors. You have still
time and power to struggle against them, as the chains of habit have not
been added to those of nature. But, before the struggle begins, you must
be convinced of its necessity; and this is probably the point on which
you are entirely incredulous. Listen to me, then, while I help you to
discover the hidden mysteries of a heart that "is deceitful above all
things," and let the self-examination I urge upon you be prompt, be
immediate. Let it be exercised through the day that is coming; watch the
manner in which you express yourself on every subject; observe,
especially those temptations which will assail you to venture upon
greater deviations from truth than those which you think you may
harmlessly indulge in, under the sanction of vivid imagination, poetic
fancy, &c. This latter part of the examination may throw great light on
the subject: people are not assailed frequently and strongly by
temptations that have never, at any former time, been yielded to.
I have reason to believe that, as one of the preparations for such
self-examination, you entertain a deep sense of the exceeding sinfulness
of sin, and feel an anxious desire to approve yourself as a faithful
servant to your heavenly Master. I do not, therefore, suppose that at
present any temptation would induce you to incur the guilt of a
deliberate falsehood. The perception of moral evil may, however, be so
blunted by habits of mere carelessness, that I should have no dependence
on your adhering for many future years to even this degree of plain,
downright truth, unless those habits are decidedly broken through. But
do not, from this, imagine that I consider a distinct, decided falsehood
more, but rather less, dangerous for the future of your character than
those lighter errors of which I have spoken. Though you may sink so far,
in course of time, as to consider even a direct lie a very small
transgression of the law of God, you will never be able to persuade
yourself that it is entirely free from sin. The injury, too, to our
neighbour, of a direct lie, can be so much more easily guarded against,
that, for the sake of others, I am far more earnest in warning you
against equivocation than against decided falsehood. It is sadly
difficult for the injured person to ward off the effects of a deceitful
glance, a misleading action, an artful insinuation. No earthly defence
is of any avail here, as the sorrows of many a wounded heart can
testify; but for such injured ones there is a sure, though it may be a
long-suffering, Defender. He is the Judge of all the earth; and even in
this world he will visit, with a punishment inevitably involved in the
consequences of their crime, those who have in any manner deceived their
neighbour to his hurt.
I do not, however, accuse you of exaggerating or equivocating from
malice alone: no,--more frequently it is for the sake of mere
amusement, or, at the worst, in cowardly self-defence; that is, you
prefer throwing the blame by insinuation upon an innocent person to
bearing courageously what you deserve yourself. In most cases, indeed,
you can plead in excuse that the blame is not of any serious nature;
that the insinuated accusation is slight enough to be entirely harmless:
so it may appear to you, but so it frequently happens not to be. This
insinuated accusation, appearing to you so unimportant, may have some
peculiar relations that make it more injurious to the slandered one than
the original blame could have been to yourself. It may be the means of
separating her from her chief friend, or shaking her influence in
quarters where perhaps it was of great importance to her that it should
be preserved unimpaired. When we lay sinful hands on the complicated
machinery of God's providence, it is impossible for us to see how far
the derangement may extend.
You may, during the course of this coming day, have an opportunity of
giving your own version of a matter in which another was concerned with
you, and in which, if the blame is thrown on her, she will have no
opportunity of defending herself. Be on your guard, then; have a noble
courage; fear nothing but the meanness and the wickedness of accusing
the absent and the defenceless. The opportunity offered you to-day of
speaking conscientiously, however trifling it may in itself appear, may
possibly be the turning point of your life; may lead you on to future
habits of cowardice and deceit, or may impart to you new vigilance and
energy for future victories over temptation.
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