Precept and Practice – SEPTEMBER 9 – Untruthfulness

Temptations to untruthfulness generally assume one of three typical forms: 

Dread is a very common cause of untruthfulness.

When children, e.g., tell a lie, either surprise or fear is frequently the cause.   Parents are often responsible for the falsehoods of their children.   It is right that children should reverence their parents;  nor can there be true reverence which is not mingled with an element of fear.   But when fear, instead of being illuminated by love, is darkened into terror, then reverence is degraded into servility, and the servile mind is seldom truthful.   Terror and subjugation are essentially hostile to truth.   The subjugate races of the world are untruthful races.   Slaves are nearly always liars;  and children nursed in terror are like slaves in this respect – their minds grow shrewd, but they grow shifty also;  and shiftiness is destructive of veracity.   Whenever, therefore, parents or teachers, or elder persons, terrorise the young, they sow the seeds of falsehood.

Terror of wrong-doing is healthy; but personal terror is poisonous.

(Bishop Diggle – Sermons for Daily Life)

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From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW