hood can ever gain for us. If we leave the truth, it is hardly possible to make up a false story which will not, to our confusion, be found out some time or other.

"A liar has

contradict at

But truth

need of a good memory, lest he one time what he said at another. 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 one trick needs a great many more to make it good." It is therefore always the wisest plan, when we are accused of a fault, to tell the truth and confess at This may indeed sometimes expose us to punishment; but if we have really done wrong, we know that we deserve to be punished. And if, out of fear, we are cowardly enough to tell a lie, we may escape at the time, but our conscience will annoy us, and we shall live in constant dread of our falsehood being found out, and our being sub

once.

jected to double punishment. And it is not only the punishment that we ought to fear; if we are found out telling a lie, then we lose our good character, our parents and teachers can no longer trust us, we will not even be readily believed when we mean to speak the truth; and it may be years before we regain the good opinion of those who have once found us out in a falsehood. If, therefore, we wish to be esteemed and trusted by others, we will be very careful never to depart in the least from the truth.

Besides, we know that falsehood seldom remains single; we begin with one little lie to save us from punishment, and immediately we need to add another to hide the first, and then a third to cover the second, and so on till we end with a long string of falsehoods. It is just like rolling a stone down a hill; a very slight push may set it agoing, but it is hardly possible to stop it. So we shall find it with telling falsehoods; if we once begin we shall

find it difficult to stop; and the further we go, the more likely it is that we shall be found out. This, therefore, should be another strong reason for keeping by the truth. But further, lying is very apt to become a habit if it be indulged, just like any other bad practice; and then, even when we wish to speak the truth, we shall find this bad habit leading us to say what is untrue, almost in spite of ourselves. We know that it is diffiIcult to cure a bad habit, and that the best · plan is to try not to form any bad habits; and this should therefore be another reason for our always keeping by the truth.

Nor must we forget the strongest of all reasons. We may deceive our parents, and cheat our teachers, by telling a falsehood, but we can never deceive God; and He has told us that we must speak the truth to each other, and that He will at last dreadfully punish all liars. We read in our Bibles how Ananias and Sapphira were struck down

dead for telling a lie; and though we do not see this happen now-a-days, yet God sees us still, and will assuredly punish us some time or other if we indulge in falsehood.

And it is not enough to keep from saying what we know to be false, we must avoid everything that looks like a lie. If we pretend to be friendly with any one whom we do not like, as Judas did with Christ when he kissed him in the garden, we are acting falsely. If we should put a stranger on the wrong road, we are guilty of falsehood, though we may not have spoken a word. If we speak as if we agreed with what any one says, when we do not agree, then we are acting falsely, and are, besides, learning to be hypocrites. And we are equally guilty if, when we tell the truth to any one, and see that he has not understood us rightly, we allow him to continue in his mistake, because it may be of some service to us. What some people call white lies, that is falsehoods

uttered with the view of doing good, are just as bad as any other; nay, in some respects they are worse, for how can we expect to do any good by the help of falsehood? We must also be on our guard against boasting and exaggeration, for there is nothing more certain to lead us into falsehood than such practices. If we once begin to boast, to try to make ourselves greater than our schoolfellows, we are almost certain to say something that is untrue in order to bear out our pretensions; and we may acquire such a habit of exaggerating that no one will be able to rely on us.

The following story will shew how little profit there frequently is in telling falsehoods.