s the soul. Think of the man that deals in stocks whipping his
children for putting false rumors afloat! Think of an orthodox
minister whipping his own flesh and blood, for not telling all it
thinks! Think of that! Think of a lawyer for beating his child for
avoiding the truth! when the old man makes about half his living that
way. A lie is born of weakness on one side and tyranny on the other.
That is what it is. Think of a great big man coming at a little bit of
a child with a club in his hand! What is the little darling to do?
Lie, of course. I think that mother Nature put that ingenuity into the
mind of the child, when attacked by a parent, to throw up a little
breastwork in the shape of a lie to defend itself. When a great
general wins a battle by what they call strategy, we build monuments to
him. What is strategy? Lies. Suppose a man as much larger than we are
as we are larger than a child five years of age, should come at us with
a liberty pole in his hand, and in tones of thunder want to know "who
broke that plate," there isn't one of us, not excepting myself, that
wouldn't swear that we never had seen that plate in our lives, or that
it was cracked when we got it.

Another good way to make children tell the truth is to tell it
yourself. Keep your word with your child the same as you would with
your banker. If you tell a child you will do anything, either do it or
give the child the reason why. Truth is born of confidence. It comes
from the lips of love and liberty. I was over in Michigan the other
day. There was a boy over there at Grand Rapids about five or six years
old, a nice, smart boy, as you will see from the remark he made--what
you might call a nineteenth century boy. His father and mother had
promised to take him out riding. They had promised to take him out
riding for about three weeks, and they would slip off and go without
him. Well, after while that got kind of played out with the little
boy, and the day before I was there they played the trick on him again.
They went out and got the carriage, and went away, and as they rode
away from the front of the house, he happened to be standing there with
his nurse, and he saw them. The whole thing flashed on him in a moment.
He took in the situation, and turned to his nurse and said, pointing to
his father and mother, "There go the two d--t liars in the State of
Michigan!" When you go home fill the house with joy, so that the light
of it