ial facts in the matter at issue,
in his answers to questions asked of him as a witness, is a lie in
essence.

But a person who is not before a court of justice is not necessarily
bound to tell all the facts involved to every person whom he
addresses, or who desires to have him do so; and therefore, while a
concealment of facts which ought to be disclosed may be equivalent to
a lie, there is such a thing as the concealment of facts which is not
only allowable, but which is an unmistakable duty. And to know
when concealment is right, and when it is wrong, is to know when
concealment partakes of the nature of a lie, and when it is a totally
different matter.

Concealment, so far from being in itself a sin, is in itself right; it
is only in its misuse that it becomes reprehensible in a given case.
Concealment is a prime duty of man; as truly a duty as truth-speaking,
or chastity, or honesty. God, who cannot lie to his creatures,
conceals much from his creatures. "The secret things belong unto the
Lord our God: but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to
our children for ever,"[1] says the author of Deuteronomy; and the
whole course of God's revelation to man is in accordance with this
announced principle of God's concealment of that which ought to be
concealed. He who is himself the revelation of God says to his chosen
disciples, even when he is speaking his latest words to them before
his death: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear
them now;"[2] and he conceals what, as yet, it is better for them
should remain concealed.

[Footnote 1: Deut. 29: 29.]

[Footnote 2: John 16:12.]

There is a profound meaning in the suggestion, in the Bible story of
man's "fall," that, when man had come to the knowledge of good and
evil, the first practical duty which he recognized as incumbent upon
himself, was the duty of concealment;[1] and from that day to this
that duty has been incumbent on him. Man has a duty to conceal his
besetting impurities of thought and inclinations to sin; to conceal
such of his doubts and fears as would dishearten others and weaken
himself by their expression; to conceal his unkindnesses of spirit and
his unjust prejudices of feeling; to conceal, in fact, whatever of his
innermost personality is liable to work harm by its disclosure, and to
a knowledge of which his fellows have no just claim. In the world as
it is, there is more to be concealed than to be disclosed in eve