APPLICATION.
The man who would go through the world with reputation and success, must preserve a religious adherence to truth: for no talents or industry can give him weight with others, or induce the sensible part of mankind to place any confidence in him, if he be known to deviate without scruple from veracity. Men of this stamp soon become notorious; and besides the ignominy which attaches to their characters, they have to undergo the mortification of not being believed even when they do speak the truth. Whatever misfortune may befal them, and however sincere they may be in making known their distress, yet, like the boy in the Fable, their complaints and most earnest asseverations cannot procure them credit, and are received at best with doubt and suspicion. The same consequences follow falsehood and deception, whether practised by individuals or public governors, and they will both find in the end that they have been guided by cunning, and not by wisdom: for although the ignorant part of mankind may, to serve the temporary purposes of a bad government, be acted upon by false alarms of imaginary dangers, yet even these in time will see through the stale tricks and artifices of those whose designs are to gull and impose upon them.
This Stone (like many
10000000 of Men in the World)
has held up its bare
useless head for many
Centuries past.
