When his father demanded an explanation, John said that the geography he had just been studying, stated that when it was night here, it was day in China—“and now,” said he, “of course the sun is shining there, though it is night here. I said that the sun shines, and so it does.”
To this the father replied as follows: “What you say now, John, is true, but still, what you said to James was a falsehood. You knew that he understood you to say that the sun shone here—you meant that he should so understand you; you meant to convey a statement to his mind that did not conform to fact, and which was therefore untrue. You had a reservation in your own mind, which you withheld from James. You did not say to him that you restricted your statement to China—that was no part of your assertion. Truth requires us not only to watch over our words, but the ideas we communicate. If we intentionally communicate ideas which are false, then we are guilty of falsehood. Now you said to James that which was untrue, according to the sense in which you knew he would, and in which you intended he should, receive it, and therefore you meant to violate the truth. I must accordingly decide against John, and in favor of James. John was wrong, and James is right. The sun did not shine as John said it did, and as James understood him to say it did.”
There are many other cases which illustrate this “truth to the letter and lie to the sense.” Some years since, during the laws against travelling on the Sabbath, a man was riding on horseback near Worcester, in Massachusetts. It chanced to be of a Sunday morning, and the traveller was soon stopped by a tythingman, who demanded his reason for riding on the Lord’s day, and thus violating the law.
“My father lies dead in Sutton,” said the other, “and I hope you will not detain me.”
“Certainly not,” said the tythingman, “under these circumstances;” and accordingly he allowed the man to proceed. About two days after, the traveller was returning, and happened to meet the tythingman in the road. The two persons recognised each other, and accordingly the following conversation ensued:
“You passed here on Sunday morning, I think, sir,” said the tythingman.
“Yes, sir,” said the traveller.
“And you told me you were going to your father’s funeral—pray when did he die?”
“I did not say I was going to my father’s funeral—I said he lay dead in Sutton, and so he did; but he has been dead for fifteen years.”
Thus you perceive that while the words of the traveller were literally true, they conveyed an intentional falsehood to the tythingman, and therefore the traveller was guilty of deception. I know that people sometimes think these tricks very witty, but they are very wicked. Truth would be of no value, if it might be used for the purposes of deception; it is because truth forbids all deception, and requires open dealing, that it is so much prized. It is always a poor bargain to give away truth for the sake of a momentary advantage, or for the purpose of playing off an ingenious trick. To barter truth for fun or mischief is giving away gold for dross. Every time a person tells a lie, or practises a deception, he inflicts an injury upon his mind, not visible to the eye of man, but as plain to the eye of God as a scar upon the flesh. By repeated falsehoods, a person may scar over his whole soul, so as to make it offensive in the sight of that Being, whose love and favor we should seek, for his friendship is the greatest of all blessings.