do you suppose it ever happens that people tell lies? "Of course, many people do," you assert.

Do you mean straight, clear, unvarnished lies, with no whitewash, no effort to deceive ones self into makebelieve as if one were telling the truth? "Yes," you insist, "people will tell plain, downright lies."

How often, do you suppose?-once in a lifetime? "It depends on the person," you reply. Can you really think of anybody telling a lie more than once; I mean a straight, out-and-out lie, where a man knows plainly that he is lying? Would not once be enough for a lifetime?

"Oh," you add, "if he did it once, it would be all the more reason why he would probably tell another lie and still another." After all, is it not easier to tell the truth than to tell a lie? "It depends on the occasion," you suggest.

In what way, do you mean? "Why," you say, "the temptation might be great, or the misfortune might be very severe, that would come upon a person if he told the truth."

But how do you suppose a man would feel after having told the truth when it came hard, or after telling a lie when he really hated to do so? Under which circumstances would he feel easier in mind?

"It would depend," you explain, "on how many times he had told lies."

Yes, I suppose that is true. And what do we call the man who tell lies? "A liar," you answer.

Tell me now, candidly, which would you rather suffer from a man, if you had to have one experience or the other-would you rather have him strike you, or tell you a downright lie? Do you know, there are persons who would choose the first? How do you account for this?

"Oh,” you say, "a lie seems so awfully mean." Yes, but if so, how is it that people can tell lies? "Perhaps because they are mean people," you suggest.

Do you think they were mean people when they first began to tell lies? "No, not necessarily," you answer.

Do you assume it comes natural to be a liar? "No," you insist, "it would be far more natural to tell the straight truth just as one knows it."

But you said to me at the outset that telling the truth often came hard. "True," you add, "but that is because doing this may cost us very much in one way or another, or be to our disadvantage. What is more," you assure me, "people do not tell the truth to us always, and that makes it harder for us to be truthful to them."

You mean to imply that one liar tends to make another liar? "It looks that way," you admit.

As a rule, if a man were to be called either a fool or a liar, which would seem to be the greater blow to his honor? "Either one would be bad enough," you answer. Yes, that is true; and yet, do you know, that about the worst blow to a person's honor, according to the feeling in human beings for hundreds of years past, has been when a man says, "You lie?"

Why is this, do you suppose? Why should he care? When he is called a fool, is not that worse? It is saying in so many words that he has a weak mind.

"True," you reply, "a man may have a weak mind and yet have honor, or character." It would look, then, as if somehow the human race, at least since civilization began, had felt that about the lowest charge which could be made against a man was to call him a liar.

Do you know, for instance, what a duel means? As a rule, we do not have them nowadays. "Yes," you explain, "it is when two men challenge each other to fight to the death, each trying to shoot or to kill the other."

And are you aware that a great many of the most awful duels in former times have occurred on account of that one charge? It was felt that if a man accused another of being a liar, it was the duty of the other man to challenge the first to a duel to the death.

Nowadays we feel that the right of life and death is not in our own hands, and that it is not our privilege to punish another in that way, even where the other deserves it. But I tell you this, in order that you may

know how human beings have felt about the indignity or meanness of a lie.

But why should we care, for instance, if a man tells us a lie? It might not affect us one way or the other. Suppose we know that it is a lie. What difference does it make?

"Oh, but," you say, "it does make a difference; "it is treating us as if we were not fit persons to whom the truth should be told

You mean that telling a lie to a man is treating him like a brute? Then, lying, for instance, is something more than just telling what is not true. It is a slur upon the honor of the man to whom the lie is told. It is mean and low.

By the way, have you ever heard the word "honor"? "Oh, yes," you say. What do you suppose it means? For instance, it is sometimes said that a man has lost his honor. What do you understand by this? "Why," you explain, "it would show that he has done something so that people could no longer put confidence in him." And what would that imply? "It would mean that he would lie," you answer.

If, on the other hand, we say of a man that he is a thoroughly honorable man, what does it suggest? "As to that," you tell me, "it means that he can be trusted; that people always feel sure in their dealings with him that he will deal squarely, that he will be true and tell the truth."

What is it, then, that usually goes with truth-speaking as a habit? "Trust," you answer. Yes, quite so, trust in a man's honor. Men who speak the truth always, without any exception, are men who are to be trusted.

But why is it that some men are not considered to be exactly dishonorable, as men who have lost their honor; and yet, on the other hand, when they are mentioned it is felt that they could not be quite altogether trusted?

"Oh," you add, "it means that they do not always tell the exact truth; that they try to get around it; that

they equivocate." Would it imply that they had the habit of telling lies? "Not quite that," you answer, "it would be not telling the whole plain truth."

How is it that one can equivocate, without necessarily telling a downright lie? "That is easy enough,' you answer, "one can leave out part of what is true, or change the impression of what one is saying by a look on the face; or one can use words in one way when one knows that others do not understand them quite in the way one is using them.”

And what do you call that? "Equivocation?" Yes, and what kind of a lie do we sometimes term it? “A white lie," you say.

Have you any idea how such a name ever arose? "Well, for instance," you tell me, "it may have come about because people would try to deceive and yet, as it were, whiten over what they were telling, so that it would not be altogether a lie.'

As a rule, how do you suppose that people who have fallen into the habit of telling downright lies of the blackest kind, began the habit? "Oh, probably by equivocating or telling what we call white lies."

You mean that this would make it easier by and by for a man to get into the habit of telling any kind of a lie whatever? "Yes, surely," you answer.

But which habit would you say was the easier to acquire; the habit of telling lies, or the habit of telling the truth? "It depends on circumstances," you tell me; "if a man is living with other people who are given to telling lies, it will be easier for him to fall into the same habit." Then lying is contagious, is it, like diseases? "Yes," you smile.

Now turn to the other side, the habit of speaking the truth. What would be the surest way of acquiring that habit, can you suggest? "One way, for instance, would be," you assure me, "by avoiding white lies, by taking care not to equivocate, by keeping to the strict or exact truth all the time."

By the way, what kind of men are usually the most esteemed, would you say, as a rule, the world over?

"Oh, the men who have power, or a good deal of money," you answer. Do you really mean that? I ask. I spoke of esteem, you notice.

"Well," you tell me, "it may be that such men are not exactly 'esteemed' most highly, altho they are admired and talked about a great deal." Does it always follow that a man of wealth is a man of honor, for example?

“No,” you admit, "it may sometimes be quite the contrary.'

Then really what class of men do we most esteem, the men of wealth just for the sake of their wealth, or the men of honor? You assure me, "when it comes to esteem, we esteem the men of honor."

Yes, that is true. Many a man has said that he was willing to let his wealth go, become poor, see all his money pass out of his hands, if only he could keep his honor.

And what did that mean? "Why," you tell me, "it would imply that he wanted to feel that people still could trust him just the same, so that people would be sure that he always was a man of his word and spoke the truth."

By the way, when a man tells his first lie, how does he probably look in his face. "He may blush, or show a sense of shame," you suggest. Yes, I believe that is

true.

And why? I ask you. "Oh, because he would feel so mean. Again, let me ask you: Which do you suppose is the worse of two forms of crime; to lie, or to steal? Have you ever thought of that? "Why," you answer, "perhaps to steal would be worse, because one may get punished and be put into prison if one steals." Yes, that is true. And yet how do you account for this saying I have met with from a famous man :

"No crime is more infamous than the violation of truth." Was he mistaken, do you suppose?

"Not necessarily," you confess. Why not? I ask. "Oh," you suggest, "a lie may seem all the worse just because it is not punished as a crime."