Lesson 71: Truth

We cannot do better than devote the last pages of our little book to the impressing on the minds of our young readers the power and force of truth. To tell the truth strictly at all times is, singular as it may seem, one of the rarest virtues to be found. We once heard a gentleman of candor and probity say it was the hardest thing in the world to tell the truth. Speaking as a man of the world he was right.

I would not ask you to become a censor of your playmates, or of those in whose company you may be placed, but it would be an interesting and profitable task to listen and record all the departures from the strict truth you may hear in a single day. First, however, let me urge you to count the untruths your own tongue may utter, and so school your tongue as to utter the simple truth at all times, before you undertake to correct this fault in others.

I hope no one of my readers is in the habit of telling out-right falsehoods. None of them, I am sure, would wish to be called a liar. Of all the vile practices of which a person may be guilty, none is more wicked than that of maliciously lying. As it is vile so it is degrading in the eyes of every right minded person. To be accused of lying is deemed the most insulting of epithets. But it is not of lying that I desire now to speak so much as of Truth.

Whatsoever is not true, is false, If you repeat that which is false, even though you may do it on the authority of another, you weaken the confidence others place in you. Never, then, make a statement without knowing it to be true.

Whatsoever is more than true is false. How common it is for people to exaggerate. Exaggeration is untruthfulness. If you are very thirsty, and say you are almost dead for some water, you tell an untruth, and those who hear you will not believe you, nor will they know what to believe when you tell them anything else. If you say there are a million geese in the prairie, or a million birds in the field, no one believes you. You mean to say there are a great many, and if you should say just that, everybody would take your words for just what they mean. Those who express themselves in this manner win the respect of others by their love of the simple truth.

Whatsoever is less than true is false. If, by telling a part of the truth, you leave a false impression upon the mind, you are as guilty of falsehood as though you told that which was really false. The intent to deceive makes the untruth. When a witness in a court of justice is brought up to testify, he is sworn to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Most people are very careful not to violate their oath, because that is an offence against the laws of men, yet how many seem careless about violating their word, or speaking falsely, which is as much an offence against God as the other. Then tell not only the truth, but the whole truth, for God takes account of every false impression you leave upon the mind of another.

But again, you may deceive by saying nothing sometimes, and then you are as guilty of falsehood as though you had expressly stated what was not true. If a person asks you a question, and you, by silence, leave him to make a false inference, you deceive him. It matters not that you have said or done nothing to this purpose. If you do not wish to give information, how much better it is to say so, and thus dismiss your questioner.

It is well to learn to describe events just as they occur, without coloring them in any way. When you have formed this habit, you will very soon be looked upon as a pattern of truthfulness, and no one will ever question any statement you may make. Do not attempt to surprise and astonish people by wonderful stories. Their only astonishment will be at your credulity. No one readily believes a wonder unless he is very credulous. If you see hailstones as large as a buckshot, do not declare they were as large as a goose egg, because those who hear you will at once say it is impossible, and doubt the next statement you make though it be possible, and indeed true. To describe anything you have seen with a strict regard to truth is a most difficult accomplishment. We all delight to surprise our friends, and the temptation to do so in such cases is almost irresistible. It is, nevertheless, very wrong to yield to it.

It is said sometimes that politeness requires deception. I cannot think so. I do not think it at all necessary to tell a person you are glad to see him when you are not. You need not tell him that you are not glad, for that would be rudeness. There are many other forms of salutation which any one may learn to use that do not express a falsehood.

If you have ever uppermost in your mind a desire to be truthful, you may learn shortly to avoid all falsehood. When you have formed the habit of strict truthfulness, you will derive much satisfaction yourself from it, and give great satisfaction to your friends. You have heard the anecdote of the great and good Washington, who, in his youth, once hacked the trunk of a fruit tree his father prized much. On being asked if he did it, he frankly confessed the fault, though at the risk of making his father very angry with him. His father folded him in his arms and said he had rather hear the truth from his boy than have a hundred such trees. Though you may never be as great as was Washington, yet a strict adherence to the simple truth at all times will make you as much beloved and respected in your sphere as he was in his.

Be then candid; be truthful; be honest, not because it is the best policy to be so, but for the sake of candor, of truthfulness and of honesty. You will have the reward of an approving conscience. God will approve your efforts to do right. With an approving conscience and an approving God, you may well afford to despise what men may say or think. Happily, however, with these comes, almost always, the approval and esteem of those by whom you are surrounded.