450. Vice of Speech

Vice of Speech

Act_5:1-10 : ’93A certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession,’94…

Well-matched pair, alike in ambition and in falsehood, Ananias and Sapphira. They wanted a reputation for great beneficence, and they sold all their property, pretending to put the entire proceeds in the charity fund, while they put much of it in their own pocket. There was no necessity that they should give all their property away, but they wanted the reputation of so doing. Ananias first lied about it and dropped down dead. Then Sapphira lied about it, and she dropped down dead. The two fatalities a warning to all ages of the danger of sacrificing the truth.

There are thousands of ways of telling a lie. A man’92s whole life may be a falsehood and yet never with his lips may he falsify once. There is a way of uttering falsehood by look, by manner, as well as by lip. There are persons who are guilty of dishonesty of speech and then afterward say ’93may be,’94 calling it a white lie, when no lie is of that color. The whitest lie ever told was as black as perdition. There are those so given to dishonesty of speech that they do not know when they are lying. With some it is an acquired sin, and with others it is a natural infirmity. There are those whom you will recognize as born liars. Their whole life, from cradle to grave, is filled up with vice of speech. Misrepresentation and prevarication are as natural to them as the infantile diseases, and are a sort of moral croup or spiritual scarlatina. Then there are those who in after life avail themselves of opportunities of developing this evil, and they go from deception to deception, and from class to class, until they are regularly graduated liars. At times the air in our cities is filled with falsehood, and lies cluster around the mechanics’92 hammer, blossom on the merchants’92 yardstick, and sometimes sit in the door of churches. They are called by some fabrication, and they are called by some, fiction. You might call them subterfuge or deceit or romance or fable or misrepresentation or delusion; but as I know nothing to be gained by covering up a God-defying sin with a lexicographer’92s blanket, I shall call them in plainest vernacular, lies. They may be divided into lies agricultural, commercial, mechanical, social and ecclesiastical.

First of all, I speak of agricultural falsehoods. There is something in the presence of natural objects that has a tendency to make one pure. The trees never issue false stock. Rye and oats never move out in the night, not paying for the place they occupy. Corn-shocks never make false assignment. Mountain brooks are always current. The gold of the wheat fields is never counterfeit. But while the tendency of agricultural life is to make one honest, honesty is not the characteristic of all who come to the city markets from the country districts. You hear the creaking of the dishonest farm-wagon in almost every street of our great cities’97a farm-wagon in which there is not one honest spoke, or one truthful rivet, from tongue to tail-board. Again and again has domestic economy in our great cities foundered on the farmer’92s firkin. When New York and Washington sit down and weep over their sins, let Westchester county and the neighborhoods around this capital sit down and weep over theirs.

The tendency in all rural districts is to suppose that sins and transgressions cluster in our great cities; but citizens and merchants long ago learned that it is not safe to calculate from the character of the apples on the top of the farmer’92s barrel what is the character of the apples all the way down toward the bottom. Many of our citizens and merchants have learned that it is always wise to see the farmer measure the barrel of beets. Milk-cans are not always honest. There are those, who in country life, seem to think they have a right to overreach grain dealers and merchants of all kinds. They think it is more honorable to raise corn than to deal in corn. The producer sometimes practically says to the merchant: ’93You get your money easily, anyhow.’94 Does he get it easily? While the farmer sleeps, and he may go to sleep, conscious of the fact that his corn and rye are all the time progressing and adding to his fortune or his livelihood, the merchant finds it difficult to sleep, while conscious of the fact that at that moment the ship may be driving on the rock, or a wave sweeping over the hurricane-deck spoiling his goods, or the speculators may be plotting a monetary revolution, or the burglars may be at that moment at his money-safe, or the fire may have kindled on the very block where his store stands. Easy, is it? Let those who get their living in the quiet farm and barn take the place of one of our city merchants and see whether it is so easy. It is hard enough to have the hands blistered with outdoor work, but it is harder to bear with mental anxieties, to have the brain consumed. God help the merchants. And do not let those who live in country life come to the conclusion that all the dishonesties belong to city life.

I pass on to consider commercial lies. There are those who apologize for deviations from the right and for practical deception by saying it is commercial custom. In other words, a lie by multiplication becomes a virtue. There are large fortunes gathered in which there is not one drop of the sweat of unrequited toil, and not one spark of bad temper flashes from the bronze bracket, and there is not one drop of needlewoman’92s heart’92s blood on the crimson plush; while there are other fortunes about which it may be said that on every door-knob and on every figure of the carpet, and on every wall there is the mark of dishonor. What if the hand wrung by toil and blistered until the skin comes off, should be placed on the exquisite wall-paper, leaving its mark of blood’97four fingers and a thumb? Or, if in the night the man should be aroused from his slumber again and again by his own conscience, getting himself up on elbow, and crying out into the darkness, ’93Who is there?’94 There are large fortunes upon which God’92s favor comes down, and it is just as honest and just as Christian to be affluent as it is to be poor. In many a house there is a blessing on every pictured wall and on every scroll, and on every traceried window, and the joy that flashes in the lights, and that showers in the music and that dances in the quick feet of the children sounds pattering through the hall has in it the favor of God and the approval of man. And there are thousands and tens of thousands of merchants who, from the first day they sold a yard of cloth, or firkin of butter, have maintained their integrity. They were born honest, they will live honest, and they will die honest. But you and I know that there are in commercial life those who are guilty of great dishonesties of speech. A merchant says: ’93I am selling these goods at less than cost.’94 Is he getting for those goods a price inferior to that which he paid for them? Then he has spoken the truth. Is he getting more? Then he lies. A merchant says: ’93I paid twenty-five dollars for this article.’94 Is that the price he paid for it? All right. But suppose he paid for it twenty-three dollars instead of twenty-five dollars? Then he lies.

But there are just as many falsehoods before the counter as there are behind the counter. A customer comes in and asks: ’93How much is this article?’94 ’93It is five dollars.’94 ’93I can get that for four somewhere else.’94 Can he get it for four somewhere else, or did he say that just for the purpose of getting it cheap by depreciating the value of the goods? If so, he lied. There are as many falsehoods before the counter as there are behind the counter.

A man unrolls upon the counter a bale of handkerchiefs. The customer says: ’93Are these all silk?’94 ’93Yes.’94 ’93No cotton in them?’94 ’93No cotton in them.’94 Are those handkerchiefs all silk? Then the merchant told the truth. Is there any cotton in them? Then he lied. Moreover, he defrauds himself, for this customer buying the goods will, after a while find out that he has been defrauded, and the next time he comes to town and goes shopping, he will look up at that sign and say: ’93No, I will not go there; that is the place where I got those handkerchiefs.’94 First, the merchant insulted God, and, secondly, he picked his own pocket. Who would take the responsibility of saying how many falsehoods were yesterday told by hardware men, and clothiers, and lumbermen, and tobacconists, and jewelers, and importers, and shippers, and dealers in furniture, and dealers in coal, and dealers in groceries? Lies about buckles, about saddles, about harness, about shoes, about hats, about coats, about shovels, about tongs, about forks, about chairs, about sofas, about horses, about lands, about everything. I arraign commercial falsehood as one of the crying sins of our time.

I pass on to speak of mechanical falsehoods. Among the artisans are those upon whom we are dependent for the houses in which we live, the garments we wear, the cars in which we ride. The vast majority of them are, so far as I know them, men who speak the truth, and they are upright, and many of them are foremost in great philanthropies and in churches; but that all do not belong to that class every one knows. In times when there is a great demand for labor, it is not so easy for such men to keep their obligations, because they may miscalculate in regard to the weather, or they may not be able to get the help they anticipated in their enterprise. I am speaking now of those who promise to do that which they know they will not be able to do. They say they will come on Monday; they do not come until Wednesday. They say they will come on Wednesday; they do not come until Saturday. They say they will have the job done in ten days; they do not get it done before thirty. And when a man becomes irritated and will not stand it any longer, then they go and work for him a day or two and keep the job along; and then some one else gets irritated and outraged and they go and work for that man and get him pacified, and then they go somewhere else. I believe they call that ’93nursing the job!’94 How much dishonor such men would save their souls if they would promise to do only that which they know they can do. ’93Oh,’94 they say, ’93it’92s of no importance; everybody expects to be deceived and disappointed. There is a voice of thunder sounding among the saws and the hammers and the shears, saying: ’93All liars shall have their place in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.’94

I pass on to speak of social lies. How much of society is insincere? You hardly know what to believe. They send their regards; you do not exactly know whether it is an expression of the heart, or an external civility. They ask you to come to their house; you hardly know whether they really want you to come. We are all accustomed to take a discount off what we hear. ’93Not at home’94 very often means too lazy to dress. I was reading of a lady who said she had told her last fashionable lie. She had told one that could never be rectified. There was a knock at her door and she sent word down, ’93Not at home.’94 That night her husband said to her: ’93Mrs. So-and-so is dead.’94 ’93Is it possible!’94 she said. ’93Yes, and she died in great anguish of mind; she wanted to see you so very much; she had something very important to disclose to you in her last hour, and she sent three times today, but found you absent every time.’94 Then this woman bethought herself that she had had a bargain with her neighbor that when the long-protracted sickness was about to come to an end, she would appear at her bedside and take the secret that was to be disclosed. And she had said she was ’93Not at home.’94

Social life is struck through with insincerity. People apologize for the fact that the furnace is out; they have not had any fire in it all winter. They apologize for the fare on their table; they never live any better. They decry their most luxurious entertainment to win a shower of approval from you. They point at a picture on the wall as a work of one of the old masters. They say it is an heirloom in the family. It hung on the wall of a castle. A duke gave it to their grandfather! People that will lie about nothing else will lie about a picture. On small income we want the world to believe we are affluent, and society today is struck through with cheat and counterfeit and sham. How few people are natural! Frigidity sails around, iceberg grinding against iceberg. You must not laugh outright; that is vulgar. You must smile. You must not dash quickly across the room; that is vulgar. You must glide. Much of. society is a round of bows and grins and grimaces and oh’92s and ah’92s and he-he-he’92s and simperings and namby-pambyism, a whole world of which is not worth one good honest round of laughter. From such a hollow scene the tortured guest retires at the close of the evening, assuring the host that he has enjoyed himself. Society is become so contorted and deformed in this respect that a mountain cabin where the rustics gather at a quilting or an apple-paring, has in it more good cheer than many of the frescoed refrigerators of the metropolis.

I pass on to speak of ecclesiastical lies, those which are told for the advancement or retarding of a church or sect. It is hardly worth your while to ask an extreme Calvinist what an Arminian believes. He will tell you that an Arminian believes that man can save himself. An Arminian believes no such thing. It is hardly worth your while to ask an extreme Arminian what a Calvinist believes. He will tell you that a Calvinist believes that God made some men just to damn them. A Calvinist believes no such thing. It is hardly worth your while to ask a Pedo-Baptist what a Baptist believes. He will tell you a Baptist believes that immersion is necessary for salvation. An intelligent Baptist does not believe any such thing It is hardly worth your while to ask a man, who very much hates Presbyterians, what a Presbyterian believes. He will tell you that a Presbyterian believes that there are infants in hell a span long, and that very phraseology has come down from generation to generation in the Christian Church. There never was a Presbyterian who believed that. ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93I heard some Presbyterian minister twenty years ago say so.’94 You did not.

Then, how often it is that there are misrepresentations on the part of individual churches in regard to other churches’97especially if a church comes to great prosperity. As long as a church is in poverty, and the singing is poor, and all the surroundings are decrepit, and the congregation are so hardly bested in life that their pastor goes with elbows out, then there will always be Christian people in churches who say, ’93What a pity! what a pity!’94 But let the day of prosperity come to a Christian church, and let the music be triumphant, and let there be vast assemblages, and then there will be even ministers of the Gospel critical and denunciatory and full of misrepresentation and falsification, giving the impression to the outside world that they do not like the corn because it is not ground in their mill. Let us in all departments of life stand back from deception.

But some one says, ’93The deception that I practise is so small that it don’92t amount to anything.’94 It does amount to a great deal. You say, ’93When I deceive, it is only about a case of needles or a box of buttons or a row of pins.’94 The article may be so small you can put it in your vest pocket, but the sin is as big as the pyramids, and the echo of your dishonor will reverberate through the mountains of eternity. There is no such thing as a small sin. They are all vast and stupendous, because they will all have to come under inspection in the day of judgment. You may boast yourself of having made a fine bargain’97a sharp bargain. You may carry out what the Bible says in regard to that man who went in to make a purchase and depreciated the value of the goods, and then after he had got away boasted of the splendid bargain he had made. ’93It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth.’94 It may seem to the world a sharp bargain, but the recording angel wrote down in the ponderous tomes of eternity, ’93Mr. So-and-so, doing business on Pennsylvania avenue or Broadway or Chestnut street or State street told one lie.

May God extirpate from society all the ecclesiastical lies and all the social lies and all the mechanical lies and all the commercial lies and all the agricultural lies and make every man to speak the truth of his neighbor. Let us make our life correspond to what we are. Let us banish all deception from out behavior. Let us remember that the time comes when God will demonstrate before an assembled universe just what we are. The secret will come out. We may hide it while we live, but we cannot hide it when we die.

To many life is a masquerade ball. As at such entertainment gentlemen and ladies appear in garb of kings or queens or mountain bandits or clowns, and then at the close of the dance put off their disguise; so many all through life are in mask. The masquerade ball goes on, and gemmed hand clasps gemmed hand, and dancing feet respond to dancing feet, and gleaming brow bends to gleaming brow, and the masquerade ball goes bravely on. But after a while languor comes and blurs the sight. Lights lower. Floor hollow with sepulchral echo. Music saddens into a wail. Lights lower. Now the masquerade is hardly seen. The fragrance is exchanged for the sickening odor of garlands that have lain a long while in the damp of sepulchers. Lights lower. Mists fill the room. The scarf drops from the shoulder of beauty, a shroud. Lights lower. Torn leaves and withered garlands. Stench of lamp-wicks almost quenched. Choking dampness. Chilliness. Feet still. Hands folded. Eyes shut. Voice hushed. Lights out.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage