fuse to speak, even though his own life were risked
thereby; for it were better to die than to lie. And so in many another
emergency.

A lie being a sin _per se_, no price paid for it, nor any advantage to
be gained from it, would make it other than a sin. The temptation to
look at it as a "necessity" may, indeed, be increased by increasing
the supposed cost of its refusal; but it is a temptation to
wrong-doing to the last. It was a heathen maxim, "Do right though the
heavens fall," and Christian ethics ought not to have a lower standard
than that of the best heathen morality.

Duty toward God cannot be counted out of this question. God himself
cannot lie. God cannot justify or approve a lie. Hence it follows that
he who deliberately lies in order to secure a gain to himself, or to
one whom he loves, must by that very act leave the service of God, and
put himself for the time being under the rule of the "father of
lies." Thus in an emergency which seems to a man to justify a "lie of
necessity" that man's attitude toward God might be indicated in this
address to him: "Lord, I should prefer to continue in your service,
and I would do so if you were able and willing to help me. But I find
myself in an emergency where a lie is a 'necessity,' and so I must
avail myself of the help of 'the father of lies.' If I am carried
through this crisis by his help, I shall be glad to resume my position
in your service." The man whose whole moral nature recoils from this
position, will not be led into it by the best arguments of Christian
philosophers in favor of the "lie of necessity."

VI.

CENTURIES OF DISCUSSION.

Because of the obvious gain in lying in times of extremity, and
because of the manifest peril or cost of truth-telling in an
emergency, attempts have been made, by interested or prejudiced
persons, all along the ages, to reconcile the general duty of adhering
to an absolute standard of right, with the special inducements, or
temptations, to depart from that standard for the time being. It has
been claimed by many that the results of a lie would, under certain
circumstances, justify the use of a lie,--the good end in this case
justifying the bad means in this case. And the endeavor has also been
made to show that what is called a lie is not always a lie. Yet there
have ever been found stalwart champions of the right, ready to insist
that a lie is a sin _per se_, and therefore not to be justified by any
advanta