Never allow yourself to look in boxes or drawers, as it is a temptation to honesty, besides, being contrary to the wish of employers. Never allow yourself to take the most trifling article that belongs to another. Nothing is more important to a domestic than a character
for honesty, and nothing grows so fast as habits of dishonesty. If you will steal needles, thread, pins, cord, or tapes, you will soon take more valuable things. And it is not the value of the thing taken which makes it an act of theft. Stealing is “taking or using any thing that belongs to another, without evidence that the owner is willing.” And no matter how small the thing is, it is theft, as much as if it were greater. And it is not the harm done to another that is most to be feared, it is the injury done to yourself in forming a habit of dishonesty, and thus searing your conscience, and ruining your character. Always remember that you are committing a sin, when you are handling or using any thing that belongs to another, if you would be unwilling to have the owner suddenly appear and see you doing it.
LETTER XVIII.
The Way to be Happy.
My Friends:
Before concluding this little book, I will attempt to make one thing plain to you, which often puzzles many minds. From the pulpit, and in many other ways, you are often urged to become religious. And this duty is spoken of in a great variety of ways, so that there is a perplexity and difficulty in knowing exactly what it is that you are urged to do. You are sometimes urged “to become religious,” to “become pious,” to “become Christians;” at other times you are told, that you must “repent;” that you must “be converted;” must “submit to God;” must be “born again;” must have “a new heart;” must “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ;” must have “faith in Christ.” I have no doubt but that you sometimes feel, that you do not exactly understand what you are required to do, and that if any one would explain
the matter so that you knew exactly what to do, you should be willing to do it. Now this is what I am going to attempt, and I think I can make it clear by a simple illustration.
Suppose a long and lingering sickness should suddenly appear in the place where you live, and the nurses and physicians could find no cure for it. At length a man appears who claims, that all who will come to him and obey his prescriptions, will be cured. Some say they believe in him, and some say they do not.—Some say they have faith in him, and some say they have not. Some come to him and get his directions, and obey them exactly; some do not even ask his advice; others ask for it, and when it is written out, lay it up in a drawer and never use it. Now, in this case, who are the persons who really believe in him, and really have faith in him? Surely it is not those who say they believe in him, it is only those who go to him, take his advice, and to the best of their understanding, obey it.
Now, suppose all who really obeyed his advice were healed, and then others who had neglected and despised him, should come to them,