Lesson 70: Simplicity of Truth

I witnessed, a short time ago, in one of our high courts, a beautiful illustration of the simplicity and power of truth.

A little girl, nine years of age, was offered as a witness against a prisoner who was on trial for felony committed in her father's house.

"Now, Emily," said the counsel for the prisoner, upon her being offered as a witness, "I desire to know if you understand the nature of an oath?"

"I don't know what you mean," was the simple answer.

"There, your Honor," said the counsel, addressing the Court, "is anything further necessary to demonstrate the validity of my objections? This witness should be rejected. She does not comprehend the nature of an oath."

"Let us see," said the Judge; "come here, my daughter."

Assured by the kind tone and manner of the Judge, the child stepped towards him, and looked confidently up in his face with a calm, clear eye, and a manner so artless and frank that it went straight to the heart.

"Did you ever take an oath?" inquired the Judge.

The little girl stepped back with a look of horror, and the red blood mantled in a blush all over her face and neck as she answered, "No, sir." She thought he intended to inquire if she had ever blasphemed.

"I do not mean that," said the Judge, who saw her mistake. "I mean were you ever a witness before?"

"No, sir!"

He handed her the Bible, open.

"Do you know that book, my daughter?"

She looked at it, and answered, "Yes, sir, it is the Bible."

"Do you ever read it?" he asked.

"Yes, sir--every evening."

"Can you tell me what the Bible is?"

"It is the word of the great God," she answered.

"Well, place your hand upon this Bible, and listen to what I say," and he repeated slowly and solemnly the oath usually administered to witnesses.

"Now," said the Judge, "you have been sworn as a witness; will you tell me what will befall you if you do not tell the truth?"

"I shall be put in the State Prison," answered the child.

"Anything else?" asked the Judge.

"I shall never go to heaven."

"How do you know?" asked the Judge again.

The child took the Bible, and turning rapidly to the chapter containing the commandments, pointed to the injunction: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." "I learned that," she said, "before I could read."

"Has any one talked with you about your being a witness in court here against this man?" inquired the Judge.

"Yes, sir," she replied, "my mother heard that they wanted me to be a witness, and last night she called me into her room, and asked me to tell her the ten commandments, and then we kneeled down together, and she prayed that I might understand how wicked it was to bear false witness against my neighbor, and that God would hear every word I said."

"Do you believe this?" asked the Judge, with a tear glistening in his eye, and his lips quivering with emotion.

"Yes, sir," said the child, with a voice and manner that showed her conviction of the truth was perfect.

"God bless you, my child," said the Judge, "you have a good mother. This witness is competent," he continued. "Were I on trial for my life, and innocent of the charge against me, I would pray God for such a witness as this. Let her be examined."

She told her story with the simplicity of a child as she was, but there was a directness about it that carried conviction of its truth to every heart. She was rigidly cross-examined. The counsel plied her with infinite ingenious questioning, but she varied from her first statement in nothing. The truth, as spoken by that child, was sublime. Falsehood and perjury had preceded her testimony.

The prisoner had entrenched himself in lies until he deemed himself impregnable. Witnesses had falsified facts in his favor, and villainy had manufactured a sham defence, but before her testimony falsehood scattered like chaff. The little child, for whom a mother had prayed for strength to be given her to speak the truth as it was before God, broke the cunning devices of matured villainy in pieces like a potter's vessel.

The strength that the mother prayed for was given her--the sublime and terrible simplicity (terrible I mean to the prisoner and his perjured associates) with which she spoke was like a revelation from God Himself.