tice resulting from a lie, I prevaricate against
right in lying, but my sin is not a serious offense.

This is a vice that certainly deserves to be fought against and
punished always and in all places, especially in the young who are so
prone thereto, first because it is a sin; and again, because of the
social evils that it gives rise to. There is no gainsaying the fact
that in the code of purely human morals, lying is considered a very
heinous offense that ostracizes a man when robbery on a large scale,
adultery and other first-degree misdemeanors leave him perfectly
honorable. This recalls an instance of a recent courtroom. A young
miscreant thoroughly imbued with pharisaic morals met with a bold face,
without a blush or a flinch, accusations of misconduct, robbery and
murder; but when charged with being a liar, he sprang at his accuser in
open court and tried to throttle him. His fine indignation got the best
of him; he could not stand that.

Among pious-minded people two extreme errors are not infrequently met
with. The one is that a lie is not wrong unless the neighbor suffers
thereby; the falsity of this we have already shown. According to the
other, a lie is such an evil that it should not be tolerated, not one
lie, even if all the souls in hell were thereby to be liberated. To
this we answer that we would like to get such a chance once; we fear we
would tell a whopper. It would be wicked, of course; but we might
expect leniency from the just Judge under the circumstances.

CHAPTER XCIII.
CONCEALING THE TRUTH.

THE duty always to tell the truth does not imply the obligation always
to tell all you know; and falsehood does not always follow as a result
of not revealing your mind to the first inquisitive person that chooses
to put embarrassing questions. Alongside, but not contrary to, the duty
of veracity is the right every man has to personal and professional
secrets. For a man's mind is not public property; there may arise at
times circumstances in which he not only may, but is in duty bound to
withhold information that concerns himself intimately or touches a third
person; and there must be a means to protect the sacredness of such
secrets against undue curiosity and inquisitiveness, without recourse
to the unlawful method of lying. Silence is not an effective resource,
for it not infrequently gives consent one or the other way; the
question may be put in such a manner that affirmation or negation will