midnight dream, and drearer midnight wakefulness on his own pillow. And all such dark broodings he has collected and condensed into the savage figures which he has sculptured on the wall of the dwelling-place of the second death. And his pictures of punishment, though often tasteless, exaggerated, and unideal, are redeemed by their intense and burning sincerity."

"Mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good,” says Solomon; and "the lips of truth shall be established forever.” Truth is designed to be for us a germ sown in our intelligence, there to grow, develop itself, and produce its flowers and fruit forever. It is through this heavenly medium that is revealed the magnificent and immense temple of that religion which, built upon the immovable foundation of faith, is destined to fill the earth, rise to heaven, and crush under its immensity every presumptuous intellect and obdurate heart.

The sword of truth is two edged; it is a living image of the double power on which Jesus Christ has built his church. Armed with this, the man of God attacks, on on side the scholastic and vain-glorious by the force of reason; and, on the other, he reaps down the humble, the uneducated, and the wise themselves, by the internal force of penitent conviction. May the time soon come, when all shall feel the blows of that sword, the omnipotent hilt of which is in the hand of God, and its resistless double point everywhere.

"Hail! terror of the monarchs of the world,
Unshaken be thy throne as earth's firm base,
Live till the sun forgets to dart his beams,
And weary planets loiter in their course."

CHAPTER XVI.

FALSEHOOD;

OR, THE DISSEMBLER ACCURSED.

ONE of the best descriptions extant of the deceptions practised by a hypocrite, is in Proverbs 26: 23. "Burning lips and a wicked heart are like a potsherd covered with silver dross." Here we have a vile substance rendered attractive to the unwise by the glitter of an unsubstantial show, a false heart adorned with useless dross. The verses immediately following are striking. "He that hateth, dissembleth with his lips, and layeth up deceit within him. When he speaketh fair, believe him not: for there are seven abominations in his heart. Whose hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be showed before the whole congregation." The exposition of the sentiment contained in this Scripture will be given as we proceed to consider our subject under the varied aspects of falsehood in appearance, in suggestion, and in assertion. In the first place, look at falsehood as, under deceitful appearances, it is often assumed. This point is more fully disFalsehood is frequently per

cussed in the chapter on deceit. petrated under hollow and treacherous appearances, as pernicious as they are vile. "In many looks the false heart's history is writ, in moods and frowns, and wrinkles strange." The assumption of lying appearances is quite too common a practice among all classes of persons. The vain and dissem

bling coquette,

"Nymph of the mincing mouth, and languid eye,
And lisping tongue so soft, and head awry,
And flutt'ring heart, of leaves of aspen made,"

puts on an air of esteem for all the simpletons who court her regards, and seems most to favor those whom at heart she

scorns.

"Bright as the sun her eyes the gazers strike,

And like the sun, they shine on all alike."

The demagogue talks with hypocritical fervor about the dear people, and assumes to be wonderfully indignant at their wrongs. He abuses the rich until by infamous manoeuvring he obtains a little property of his own, and then he is the most purse-proud and insufferable of aristocrats. But at first he affects great humbleness of purpose in his fawning before the common people, and thus "dives into their hearts, with humble and familiar courtesy." It is not long, however, before his dupes learn that,

"Not always actions show the man: we find
Who does a kindness is not therefore kind;
Who combats bravely is not therefore brave;-
He dreads a death-bed, like the meanest slave;
Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise-

His pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies."

Often where the lips speak fair, there is dissembling in the manner and hatred in the heart. Cain talked graciously with his brother in the field, while meditating his destruction. Saul pretended to honor David, while he was plotting his ruin. Absalom laid up deceit against his brother, and for two years dissembled by seeming to let him alone. It is not uncommon to find "a raven's heart within a dove," as when Joab covered his murderous intentions with professions of peace.

But, a still baser form of falsehood is, the assumption of a solemnity we do not feel; speaking in sanctimonious tones, and putting on demure looks in order the more hypocritically to act religion before the world. Churchill has said that,

"When fiction rises, pleasing to the eye,
Men will believe, because they love the lie;

But truth herself, if clouded with a frown,

Must have some solemn proof, to pass her down."

This is very true, and yet assumed sobriety and unreal cheerfulness do no good in the end. The assumption will be detected and the imposition scorned.

Under this head, it remains to speak of one other species of false appearance, and the worst of all-the appearance of indifference towards our sacred religion, for the sake of conciliating the favor of base persons who may be present. Says an old divine, “This is hypocrisy turned the wrong side outward, disguising a man in a fouler shape, and uglier garb, than that which is natural and true.

"And if we compare the two hypocrisies (that of pretending conscience which we want, and this of denying conscience which we have; that of seeming better than we are, this of seeming worse than we may be), this in nature may well seem more vile, in tendency more dangerous, in effect more mischievous than the other.

"There is in both the same falsehood, the same prevarication, the like contempt and abuse of God; but the hypocrite of whom we speak doeth worse things, more directly wrongful to God, more prejudicial to goodness, more harmful to the world.

"The specious hypocrite, counterfeiting goodness, and having a form of godliness, without the power and reality of it, doth yield to God some part (the exterior part) of his due honor and respect; but the sneaking hypocrite, disowning goodness, doth apparently desert, slight, and affront God: the one serveth God with his face and his voice, though his heart be far from him; the other doth not so much as sacrifice a carcass of obedience to him: that may bring some credit and advantage to goodness, strengthen its interest by his vote and countenance; this, by not avowing it, doth assuredly weaken its reputation and cause: that hypocrisy, as such, is a private and single evil, whereby a man doth indeed prejudice himself,

but doth not injure his neighbor, yea, may edify him by the appearing (which in this respect is the same with the real) goodness of his example; but this hypocrisy is a general mischief, a scandalous evil, a contagious pestilence, whereby a man not only harmeth himself, but wrongeth many others, seducing them into dissoluteness, infecting the world with base indifference to good, and easiness to comply with sin.

"It is indeed a sad thing that God and goodness should be deserted upon this account; that most men should be so uncharitable, so unjust, so imprudent, as to suspect all good men of hypocrisy; as if it were incredible that any man should heartily love or fear God (when it is rather strange that any man should do otherwise ;) that any man in good earnest, or otherwise than in pretence and for sinister respects, should embrace virtue (when it is marvellous that a reasonable man should decline it;) that so many, of themselves inclinable to goodness, should be so weak as to be deterred from it by so vain an apprehension; and that the name of hypocrisy should drive away piety; that it should become desirable that hypocrites might abound in the world, lest religion both in truth and show should be discarded.

"In fine, we may otherwise suppress this odious imputation than by deserting goodness; we may demonstrate ourselves serious and sincere by an inflexible adherence to it in the continual tenor of our practice; and especially in some instances of duty, which are hardly consistent with hypocrisy: for no man can hold long in a strained posture; no man will take much pains, or encounter great difficulties, or sustain grievous hardships and afflictions, cross his appetites, forego gains and honors, for that which he doth not heartily like and love: he may counterfeit in ceremonies and formalities, but he will hardly feign humility, meekness, patience, contentedness, temperance, at least uniformly and constantly. Even the patient enduring this censure will confute it, and wipe off the aspersion of hypocrisy."