CHAP. XII.

OUR OWN EXPERIENCE OF THE PAINFUL RESULTS OF LYING.

I CANNOT point out the mischievous nature and impolicy of lying better than by referring my readers to their own experience. Which of them does not know some few persons, at least, from whose habitual disregard of truth they have often suffered; and with whom they find intimacy unpleasant, as well as unsafe; because confidence, that charm and cement of intimacy, is wholly wanting in the intercourse? Which of my readers is not sometimes obliged to say, “ I

ought to add, that my authority for what I have just related, is only Mr. and Mrs. such-a-one, or a certain young lady, or a certain young gentleman; therefore, you know what credit is to be given to it."

It has been asserted, that every town and village has its idiot; and, with equal truth, probably, it may be advanced, that every one's circle of acquaintances contains one or more persons known to be habitual liars, and always mentioned as such. I may be asked, "if this be so, of what consequence is it? And how is it mischievous? If such persons are known and chronicled as liars, they can deceive no one; and, therefore, can do no harm." But this is not true: we are not always on our guard, either against our own weakness, or against that of others; and if the most notorious liar

tells us something which we wish to believe, our wise resolution never to credit or repeat what he has told us, fades before our desire to confide in him on this occasion. Thus, even in spite of caution, we become the agents of his falsehood; and, though lovers of truth, are the assistants of lying.

Nor are there many of my readers, I venture to pronounce, who have not at some time or other of their lives, had cause to lament some violation of truth, of which they themselves were guilty, and which, at the time, they considered as wise, or positively unavoidable.

But the greatest proof of the impolicy even of occasional lying is, that it exposes one to the danger of never being believed in future. It is difficult to give implicit credence to those who have once deceived us; when they did

so deceive, they were governed by a motive sufficiently powerful to overcome their regard for truth; and how can one ever be sure, that equal temptation is not always present, and always overcoming them?

Admitting, that perpetual distrust attends on those who are known to be frequent violaters of truth, it seems to me that the liar is, as if he was not. He is, as it were, annihilated for all the important purposes of life. That man or woman is no better than a nonentity, whose simple assertion is not credited immediately. Those whose words no one dares to repeat, without naming their authority, lest the information conveyed by them should be too implicitly credited, such persons, I repeat it, exist, as if they existed They resemble that diseased eye, which, though perfect in colour,

not.

and appearance, is wholly useless, because it cannot perform the function for which it was created, that of seeing; for, of what use to others, and of what benefit to themselves, can those be whose tongues are always suspected of uttering falsehood, and whose words, instead of inspiring confidence, that soul and cement of society, and of mutual regard, are received with offensive distrust, and never repeated without caution and apology?

I shall now endeavour to shew, that speaking the truth does not imply a necessity to wound the feelings of any one; but that, even if the unrestricted practice of truth in society did at first give pain to self-love, it would, in the end, further the best views of benevolence; namely, moral improvement.

There cannot be any reason why