it is in the face of facts like these that a writer like Professor
Fowler baldly claims, in support of the same presupposed theory as
that of Lecky, that "it is probably owing mainly to the development of
commerce, and to the consequent necessity, in many cases, of absolute
truthfulness, that veracity has come to take the prominent position
which it now occupies among the virtues; though the keen sense of
honor, engendered by chivalry, may have had something to do in
bringing about the same result."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Principles of Morality_, II., 220.]

III.

BIBLE TEACHINGS.

In looking at the Bible for light in such an investigation as this,
it is important to bear in mind that the Bible is not a collection of
specific rules of conduct, but rather a book of principles
illustrated in historic facts, and in precepts based on those
principles,--announced or presupposed. The question, therefore, is
not, Does the Bible authoritatively draw a line separating the truth
from a lie, and making the truth to be always right, and a lie to
be always wrong? but it is, Does the Bible evidently recognize an
unvarying and ever-existing distinction between a truth and a lie, and
does the whole sweep of its teachings go to show that in God's sight
a lie, as by its nature opposed to the truth and the right, is always
wrong?

The Bible opens with a picture of the first pair in Paradise, to whom
God tells the simple truth, and to whom the enemy of man tells a lie;
and it shows the ruin of mankind wrought by that lie, and the author
of the lie punished because of its telling.[1] The Bible closes with a
picture of Paradise, into which are gathered the lovers and doers of
truth, and from which is excluded "every one that loveth and doeth a
lie;"[2] while "all liars" are to have their part "in the lake that
burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death."[3] In the
Old Testament and in the New, God is represented as himself the Truth,
to whom, by his very nature, the doing or the speaking of a lie is
impossible,[4] while Satan is represented as a liar and as the "father
of lies."[5]

[Footnote 1: Gen. 2, 3.]

[Footnote 2: Rev. 22.]

[Footnote 3: Rev. 21: 5-8.]

[Footnote 4: Psa. 31:5; 146:6; John 14:6; Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29;
Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18; 1 John 5:7.]

[Footnote 5: John 8:44.]

While the human servants of God, as represented in the Bible
narrative, are in many instances guilty of lying, their lies