consciousness that he, by becoming the degraded thing he is, had made that home desolate, or filled the hearts of its inmates with bitterness.

But supposing the delinquent to be so situated, that his frauds or peculations are as yet undiscovered; even then he cannot conceal his crimes from his own conscience, which will cause him to blanch at the sight of those he has injured, cast a shade across his merriment, and instil a poison into his cup of joy. The wealth he has unjustly acquired will prove but a bane to his peace; the spectre of detection will haunt him by day, and shape his dreams by night. His home will cease to gladden him, for he will feel that its finery and decorations are not justly his. He will be filled with remorse for having corrupted the wife of his bosom, by making her a participator in his misdoings. The prattle of his children, once music to his soul, will delight him no longer, for their innocence will but the more forcibly awaken his own guilt.

Seeing, then, the national, social and individual, evils that spring from the selfish and unjust gratification of the propensities, how sedulously should we strive against every illicit desire; how watchfully should we guard our conduct lest we take the first step on the slippery declivity, leading downwards to shame, misery, and destruction.

As parents, too, how anxious should we be to check the first selfish impulse that induces our offspring thoughtlessly to appropriate trifles not their own; lest the unchecked. desire to acts of pilfering grow up into a habit that may strengthen with their future years.

How necessary, also, to have always before us the great moral fact, that our real happiness cannot be separated from that of our fellow creatures; that we should perceive, that the same law which affords security to the possessions of the rich, augments the capital that supplies the poor with bread;

that every individual crime is a diminution of general happiness, and a tax upon all who labour; that every act of dishonesty and injustice will, publicly or privately, recoil upon those who inflict it; while every just, good, and truthful act, serves to build up the welfare and happiness of the human race.

INDIVIDUAL DUTIES.

AGAINST FALSEHOOD.

A WILFUL falsehood is a perversion of language, respecting what should be truly and honestly spoken, for purposes of deception or fraud; or with the cowardly intent of screening the utterer, or the malicious design of injuring another.

Now, inasmuch, as truth in science, in history, in men's opinions, actions and dealings with one another, is the great object aimed at by the wise and good, as best calculated to promote the general welfare; all those who, from any motive, pollute the truth, by perverting or obscuring it, are moral delinquents against the common weal.

And as all our knowledge of nature is a collection of known, or supposed truths, discovered by the observation and experience of mankind, and made evident to one another by spoken or written language; he who knowingly misrepresents, or falsifies, facts or appearances, contaminates the stream of knowledge; and is morally guilty, and accountable, for the false ideas generated thereby, and for the blunders and mischief the falsehood may occasion.

As all history is supposed to be a faithful record of past actions, events and occurrences (the object of which is to enable man to learn and profit by the experience of the past) all those who from any interest, bias or prejudice, pervert, mystify or evade the truth, belie the dignity of public instructors; and are morally culpable in transmitting to society not only that which deceives them, but that which

in future years may become a source of contention, persecution, cruelty and crime.

As man's confidence in his fellow man is increased by truthful conduct, promotive of that kindness, friendship and union, so necessary for securing their social and political well-being; he who, by lies, prevarication or deceit, seeks to weaken the bond of that confidence, is a dishonest conspirator against the welfare of society.

As production is increased, and happiness promoted, by the interchange of commodities at home and abroad; the extent of which so much depends upon the trust which men repose in the veracity of one another; he who, by dishonest misrepresentations and false promises, creates distrust in place of confidence, is a knave in morals and a traitor in business; a person liable to bring disgrace upon thousands by his treachery, and it may be to lessen the trade of a country by impairing the confidence reposed in it.

All lies and deception in business, by which an inferior article is disposed of, in place of what it is represented to be, as well as all falsehoods respecting quantity, quality, value or price, are but verbal means of robbery; for the man who deceives the buyer with a lie, may be said to pick his pockets at the same time.

And equally to be condemned, is he who obtains the goods of another by false appearances or lying inducements, when he has no possible means nor intention of ever paying for them. He is in truth a cowardly thief; base enough to cheat and rob by chicanery and fraud, but wanting courage to perform the deed boldly. And defective, indeed, are those laws which grant to such fraudulent persons a species of legal absolution for their crimes, and a new licence for again resuming their base practice of living in idleness and extravagance at the expence of honest industry.

He who malignantly circulates a lie, with the intent of

injuring the fair fame, or honest reputation of another, plans the commission of a robbery, less venial than that of stealing money or goods, for the loss of these are trifling, compared with that of a well-deserved and spotless reputation. And he who jestingly, or thoughtlessly, directs the shaft of calumny to wound the character of another, is no less morally amenable for the offence, than he who robs in sport is to the laws of his country.

The public press being also one of the most efficient means of instructing a people, if conducted with the strictest attention to proberty, becomes a most powerful instrument for deceiving, corrupting, and mystifying them, when it labours to pervert the truth; when it seeks to uphold injustice by falsehood; and to conceal, by specious and fallacious deceptions, public corruption, private delinquency, and individual wrong.

Seeing, therefore, that falsehood is a pollutor of science, an obstructor of knowledge, a fomentor of discord, and an enemy to social confidence and harmony; it is to be despised as mean, sly and hateful; a vice as individually degrading to the utterer, as it is generally mischievous in its tendency.

This vice of lying, like most other vices, is a vile habit, which taking root in childhood, through the neglect of parental culture, grows and strengthens with years, like an unchecked weed, to the great injury of man's nobler nature. It sometimes has its origin in the desire of emulation, and so the child thoughtlessly imitates the falsehoods and deceptions of those about him. At other times it springs from fear, or the desire of concealment, when the avowal of the truth might lead to punishment, or tend to deprive him of some enjoyment.

The habit, thus commenced in childhood, is too often strengthened in youth and fortified in manhood by the vile