Page:Sermons on the Ten Commandments.djvu/147

 deception that are everywhere practised. See how the whole race is tainted with the foul pollution of falsehood—men selling their souls for a piece of money. The sin is rank, and, like the smoke of blood just shed, ascends to heaven.

Look, then, at the world of public life; mark the wickedness that prevails in high places! See how the sin of falsehood and deception runs riot there! How does the Lord look down and behold his Commandment broken every hour! We may judge what an age we live in, when truth, the guardian and preserver of all that is good and pure, is so little regarded.

Now, every man of principle, every man who has any religion, every man who is looking towards heaven, who knows and realizes what he is living for in this lower world,—who cares for the good of his fellow-men and his own eternal good and happiness—every such man is imperatively called upon to take his stand against this course of things. He must set his face firmly against this evil. And let him begin with reforming himself. Let him take care that there is no fraud or deception, no falsehood, open or disguised, in his own dealings. Let him strive to keep all his engagements punctually. Let truth be on his lips and in his acts—and the Lord will bless and prosper him, even in this world, and save him at last.

But let us now turn to another view of the subject. "To bear false witness" is also to traduce and defame the neighbor, and falsely to speak anything evil of him. And here a wide field of remark opens before us. If there be a sin, which is the pest of society, and