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and affirming the immeasurable superiority of the latter, he proceeds, Yes, if the life and the death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and the death of Jesus are those of a God. Shall we say that the evangelical history is a pleasing fic. tion? My friend, men never produce such fictions; and the facts related of Socrates, concerning which no one has any doubt, are less attested than those of Jesus Christ. In effect, this is only pushing the difficulty out of sight, without destroying it; for it would be more inconceivable that several men should agree to fabricate such a book, than that a single person should have furnished the subject of it. Never did Jewish writers hit upon such a style and such morality; and the Gospel bears marks of truth so great, so obvious, so perfectly inimitable, that its inventor would be a more astonishing character than its hero. After all, this same Gospel is full of incredible things, things repugnant to reason, things which it is impossible for any considerate man to conceive of, or to believe. What is to be done amidst so many contradictions? Be always modest and circumspect, my child: respect in silence, that, which can neither be rejected nor comprehended; and be humble before that great Being who alone knows what is true. Such is the involuntary skepticism in which I abide. Yet this skepticism is not painful to me, because it does not extend to points essential in practice, and I am well satisfied on all the principles of religious duties. I serve God in the simplicity of my heart; and I seek to know only what concerns my conduct. As to dogmas which have no influence on actions and morals, about which so many disquiet themselves, I give myself no trouble about them. I regard all the various religions as so many salutary institutions prescribing a uniform manner of honoring God in each country by a

public worship, and which may all have their reasons in the climate, the government, the genius of the people, or in some other local cause which renders one preferable to another, according to times and places. I believe them all good, if men serve God agreeably to them. The worship which is essential, is that of the heart. God never rejects any homage, provided it is sincere, under whatever form it may be offered." (See Rousseau's Emile, book iv, tome ii, pp. 229-233, ed. Paris, 1822, in 3 vols. 12mo.)

Under what circumstances the ill balanced mind of Rousseau was led to adopt this singular creed, he has himself informed us in his posthumous work, entitled Reveries of a Solitary Wanderer, which is a sort of journal of the latter part of his life. He there says, (Promenade III,) "I lived among the modern philosophers, who bear little resemblance to the ancient. They, instead of clearing up my doubts and removing my indecisions, unsettled all the certainties which I thought I had gained on points the most important to be known. For those impious dogmatists and hot-brained missionaries of atheism were enraged if any one dared to think differently from them on any point whatever. I often defended myself but too feebly, either from a dislike of disputes, or a want of talents for conducting them; yet I never adopted their sickening doctrines; and this resistance to men so intolerant, and who had also their private ends, was not the least of the causes which drew forth their animosity. They could never persuade me. Their arguments stumbled, but never convinced me; when I could find no good answer, I yet felt that there must be one. I taxed myself not so much with error as with ignorance, and my heart answered them better than my head. At length I said, shall I be always the sport of sophists who can out-talk me, while

I am by no means sure that themselves believe the very opinions which they preach and labor to make others adopt? Their passions which shape their doctrines, and their interest to make this and that opinion current, render it impossible to discover their real sentiments. Can any man expect good faith from the leaders of a party? I acknowledge that I did not always remove, to my own satisfaction, all the difficulties which embarrassed me, and with which the philosophers were so often filling my ears. But being at length resolved to come to a decision on subjects of which human reason is so little the master, and finding impenetrable mysteries and insolvable objections on all sides, I adopted on each question that opinion which appeared to me the best founded and the most worthy of credit, without poring over objections which I could not solve, but which are rebutted by other objections in the opposing system no less strong. The result of my pain. ful researches was pretty much what I have described in the Profession de Foi du Vicaire Savoyard."

This beautifully written creed, the result of Rousseau's maturest deliberations, and which he seems to have thought the most free from objec tions, and of course the most worthy of universal acceptance, was at once rejected by all parties. The philosophers could not approve of it, because it was too religious; the friends of revelation rejected it, because it conceded too much to the arguments of infidels; and devout believers in Christianity were shocked to find nothing in it but natural religion. Hence the book was condemned by all parties; and the parliament of Paris ordered the arrest of the author, that they might treat him with the utmost rigor of the law. But he made his escape out of the kingdom, wending his way towards Switzerland. The Genevans refused to open their gates to him. Bern would not long harbor

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him, and he took refuge in Neufchatel. There he attended the Protestant church, and partook of its sacraments, until his enemies in France and Geneva found means to excite the populace against him. Though protected by the King of Prussia, who was sovereign of the country, he found his situation unsafe in Neufchatel, and again he sought refuge in Bern; but he was driven from that canton by force in the winter of 1765. He then fled to Strasburg, and thence to Paris, where he met with the celebrated David Hume, who conducted him safely to England. In this latter country he composed his Confessions, or autobiography, embracing all the minute events of his life prior to the year 1765. He how. ever soon became dissatisfied with England, and having fallen out with his friend Hume, he returned to Paris in 1767, and from that time onward he received protection from various individuals in France. After several years spent in compara. tive tranquillity, he died suddenly at Ermenonville, the country seat of the Marquis de Girardin, in the year 1778, aged sixty six. His remains were removed from Ermenonville in 1791, by order of the National Assembly of France, and were deposited with those of Voltaire in the Pantheon at Paris.

The works of this fascinating writer, which have been published col lectively, in ten, in twenty seven, in thirty three, and in thirty eight volumes, according to the different edi. tions, were much read during the latter half of the eighteenth century; and they probably contributed more than the writings of any other man to spread among the higher classes of society all over Europe that species of adulterated Christianity which overlooks the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, and accounts all religious creeds as of little importance, and considers morality, with some deference for the Deity, as all that is essential in religion.

LYING.

WHAT a happy world would this be, if every one spoke truth with his neighbor! Iniquity could have no concealment-guilt no protection-suspicion, distrust, no exist ence! But it can not be. We must live in a lying world. Lies are the first outbreaks of human depravity, and out they will flow while such is the character of man. But the evil may be mitigated by diffusing throughout the community definite views of the law of veracity. Multitudes are ignorant of what a lie is. They can not tell whether all falsehoods are lies, nor whether all lies are sinful. They have less distinct and correct views of the nature and boundaries of the law of veracity than of any other part of the moral code. Whether they are bound under all circumstances to speak the truth; and if not, when it is right and when wrong to speak falsehood, are questions on which they have no settled convictions. We trust it will be some service to society if we can succeed in relieving this department of morals from confusion and uncertainty. Our plan will be

to state

1. What lying is not.
2. What lying is.

3. What the moral nature of ly. ing is.

4. Certain practical lessons. I. We shall carefully distinguish a lie from things that are often confounded with it.

An untruth is not necessarily a lie. All lies are falsehoods, but all falsehoods are not lies. We do not say of a work of acknowledged fic tion, that it is a collection of lies, although many, possibly all its statements, may be untrue. Such, probably, are some of the parables of our Savior, which were not founded on any actual events, but invented by him for the purposes of instruc

tion. They are free from an essential element of lies, an intention to deceive. We may also state that to be true which is contrary to fact, without lying, for we may ourselves be deceived by the false statements of others.

Nor are all intentional deceptions lies. Every lie is an attempt to deceive, but every attempt to deceive is not a lie. Repairing and painting an old house, that it may appear to be new, is an act of deception, but not a lie. If the owner has no intention, other than to make his residence more pleasant and respectable, the deception is entirely harmless and innocent. The same may be said of innumerable acts of deception. Stratagems of war are not lies. When a person pursued by an enemy flies in a direction contrary to that which he intends to take, and when out of sight changes his course in order to elude pursuit, he deceives his pursuer, but does not lie to him. Nor is his conduct reprehensible. We have a case in point, as the lawyers say, in the Bible, Josh. viii, 2, where God instructed Joshua to take the city of Ai, not by a lie, but an ambush which effectually deceived the inhabitants.

Nor is it a correct definition to say, that a lie is an attempt to deceive with a bad intention. Deceptions are often practiced with crimi nal intentions, in violation not of the ninth commandment, but of other precepts of the Decalogue. Getting a ship insured which we have se cret information is lost, is a crim. inal deception, a fraudulent act, but not a lie. It is a violation both of the eighth and of the tenth commandments. To train a damaged or refractory horse for market with the design of deceiving buyers, and to place goods in a shop in a posi

tion to conceal their defects of quality or color, and tempt customers to buy them at an exorbitant price, are acts of the same character, deceptions, not lies, breaches of the eighth rather than the ninth commandment. Nor are all lies breaches of promise. A breach of promise is a lie, but a lie is not necessarily a breach of promise. When a person denies his age, or declares himself to be rich when he is poor, he lies, but breaks no promise. The supposi tion that whenever we make a declaration we virtually promise to speak the truth, is adopted to establish this definition; but the fact is, that the lie in the case of a false declaration consists in that declaration, and not in breaking an engagement to make a true declaration.

II. We shall state what a lie is. A lie is an attempt to deceive a person by the use of language.

By language we mean words, spoken, written, or printed, and their substitutes, as the signs used by the deaf and dumb. When one is ask ed the way to a certain place, if, instead of speaking, he points with his finger to a particular road, he uses the language of signs, a substitute for words, and if he points intentionally in a wrong direction, he tells a lie. Attempts to deceive by other means than language are not lies. When a physician deceives a patient, by mingling an offensive medicine in his food, he is not guilty of lying. It was not a lie in Dr. Samuel Johnson to have a secret chamber, unknown to his servant, to which he retired whenever he wished to avoid interruption by company. It was an honorable expedient of a conscientious man, wishing not to offend his friends by refusing to see them, and not to wound the moral sense of his servant by teaching him the fashionable falsehood, "my master is not at home."

The following considerations are offered in evidence of the correctness of this definition. Vol. I.

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The prohibition of lying in the Decalogue is a prohibition of false testimony against others, an act which can be done by the use of language only. Attempts to injure a neighbor by other modes of deception, are not forbidden by this but by other precepts. The clerk who embezzles the property of his employer, is guilty of breaking the eighth commandment, Thou shalt not steal, but he is not guilty of lying. He deceives his employer culpably, but not by a false declaration.

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In perfect keeping with the terms of the ninth commandment, we find that the Bible (except where “ ly. ing" is used figuratively) invariably speaks of language as if it were the sole instrument of lying, and assigns other names to other modes of unlawful deception. They "go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord." Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips that they speak no guile." "Putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor." These allusions to language as the instrument of lying, might be explained by the fact that language is the main instrument, were there any intimations that we can lie in any other way. But there are none. This is hardly consistent with the notion that lies may be uttered and are constantly uttered by other means. The Bible also recognizes a distinction between dealing falsely and lying. Lev. xix, 11, it is said: "Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another." Perhaps these several expressions are not used with the precision of a modern code of laws, yet neither are they used with the looseness of popular discourse.

The Bible speaks of lying as invariably sinful, but this is true only of attempts to deceive by language. It is not wrong to conceal, by dress or other means, personal deformities which would give pain to us,

and to others if known, and a knowledge of which can be of service to no one. A deception accomplished in this way, without language, may be wrong, and is wrong when it springs from a bad motive. Whoever should conceal personal deformities for the sake of gaining the hand of another in marriage, would be blameworthy in proportion to the wrong which he is conscious of intending to inflict on the other party. But the deception itself does not necessarily involve a bad motive. On the other hand, lying is invariably spoken of in the Scriptures as wrong. No exceptions are noticed. All lying is to be put away. Every man is to speak truth with his neighbor. With this description our definition is in entire harmony. While it is lawful to deceive others by various ways and means, it will appear in the sequel, that to deceive men by the use of language is never right, and is constantly mentioned with reprobation by the sacred wri

ters.

There is a palpable and radical distinction between deceiving others by language and deceiving them by other means. A physician may properly deceive an unmanageable patient by giving him a medicine covertly. But can he honestly deceive him by declaring that the cup which contains the medicine does not contain it? Suppose he is called to a man who he knows is strongly prejudiced against calomel, and who, as he believes, needs that article to subdue his disease. He may innocently administer the medicine secretly in his ordinary food; it may even be his duty to do it; while it would be wrong to carry on the deception by saying that the medicine thus prepared contains no calomel, or that he has no intention of giving him any. Every one perceives there is a difference in these modes of deception. In both cases the good of the patient is intended. The motive of the deception, what

ever may be the means of effecting it, is the recovery of the patient. But yet in one case the physician keeps within the bounds of rectitude, in the other he oversteps them. The difference, we apprehend, lies in the fact, that deception by language is a breach of veracity, which other deceptions are not. In one case the author of the deception falsifies his word, in the other he does not. In one case he impairs confidence in himself as a man of truth, and weakens his own respect and that of others for the law of veracity; in the other his patient can only be vexed with him-perhaps he will soon be pleased.

We may see this more clearly in the light of several other examples.

To resume a former illustration, a person escaping from his enemies, if he knows a place of security at the north, may direct his course to the south, for the sake of covering his intention, and effecting his escape by deceiving his pursuers. But if on the way he meets a person whom he dares not trust, and tells him he is going to another place than that which he has in view, he resorts for safety to a mode of deception, which if it is lawful, differs entirely from a mere stratagem.

Take another example. A woman in infirm health urges her husband to go with her to the Springs. He is perhaps extremely reluctant to go. His business, or his natural aversion to traveling, may render the proposal of his wife very unwelcome to him. But still his desire to gratify her, or sense of duty to her, may very properly lead him to conceal his own feelings, and to take the excursion apparently with perfect willingness and pleasure. By this course he promotes his own happiness without diminishing that of his wife by manifesting his real feelings. This is gentlemanly, kind and Christian. But if instead of merely appearing to be pleased with the journey, he deceives her by say.

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