t out
arrows, even bitter words.

It is a pity that our harsh judgments always speak more loudly and
confidently than our kindly ones, but the reason is plain: angry passion
prompts the former, and its voice is loud; while the calm reflection
which tones down and sweetens the judgment softens also the expression
of it.

It has to be remembered, also, that false witness can reach to nations,
organisations, political movements as well as individuals. The habit of
putting the worst construction upon the intentions of foreign powers is
what feeds the mutual jealousies that ultimately blaze out in war. The
habit of thinking of rival politicians as deliberately false and
treasonable is what lowers the standard of the noblest of secular
pursuits, until each party, not to be undone, protests too much, raises
its voice to a falsetto to scream its rival down, and relaxes its
standard of righteousness lest it should be outdone by the
unscrupulousness of its rival.

And there is yet another neighbour, against whom false witness is
woefully rife, both in the Church and in society. That neighbour is
mankind at large. There is a prevalent theory of human sinfulness which
unconsciously scoffs at the appeals of the gospel, striving indeed to
influence me by love, gratitude, admiration for the Perfect One, and
desire to be like Him, by the hope of holiness and the shame of
vileness, but telling me at the same time that I have no sympathies
whatever except with evil. The observation of every day shows that man's
nature is corrupt, but it also shows that he is not a fiend--that he has
fallen indeed, but remembers yet in what image he was made. But the
world cannot upbraid the Church for these exaggerations, since they are
but the echo of its own.

"I do believe,
Though I have found them not, that there may be
Words which are things, hopes which will not deceive,
And virtues which are merciful, nor weave
Snares for the failing; I would also deem
O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve;
That two, or one, are almost what they seem,
That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream."

_Childe Harold_, III., cxiv.

Cynicism is false witness; and if it does not greatly wrong any one of
our fellow-men, it injures both society and the cynic. If he is of a
coarse fibre, it excuses him to himself in becoming the hard and
unloving creature which he fancies that all men