Page:The Daughters of England.djvu/267

256 And it ought always to be borne in mind, that these little casual, but sometimes startling turns in common conversation, produce more actual untruths than the most trying circumstances in life, where we have incomparably more at stake. If we were all to take account each night of the untruths we had told in the course of the day, from an exaggerated description designed to make a story more amusing, down to the frequent case of receiving credit for an original remark, which we knew was not our own, I imagine few persons would find themselves altogether clear of having done violence to the pure spirit of truth. And if we add, also, to this list of falsehoods, all those unfair or garbled statements, which may tend to throw a brighter colouring over some cause we wish to advocate, or cast another into shade, I believe we should find that we bad indeed abundant need to pray for the renewed assistance of the Holy Spirit, to touch and guard our lips, so that they should utter no more guile. Besides these instances of the want of integrity, in which our own consciences alone are concerned, there are others which demand a stricter attention to the claims of justice, as they relate to our friends, and to society at large. Under which head, I would notice the duty of doing justice to those we do not love, and especially to those who have injured us. Instead of which, how frequently do we find that young women begin to tell all the bad qualities of their friends, as soon as they have quarrelled with them. How often do we find, too, that such disagreements are related with conscious unfairness, their own evil being kept out of tight, as well as their friend's good, where there has been a mixture of both.

There is a common practice, too, when our own conduct is in any way called in question, and our friends kindly assign a plausible reason for what we have done, to let that