It is a sure sign of mischief when certain men become serious. The moment they appear to be religious the devil is just adding the last touch to the building which he has been putting up within their souls. When they talk long words--when they speak about responsibility, obligation, duty, conscience, compulsion of conviction--they are walking over tesselated pavement into the very jaws of hell. They do not mean their words; they do but use them. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” First of all, then, be ceremoniously religious, Jezebel; then trample down truth. “Set two men, sons of Belial, before him, to bear witness against him, saying: ‘Thou didst blaspheme God and the king.’” Falsehood is always ready. A great black lie is always willing to be loosed and to be set going in the minds of men to pervert them and mislead them. It is always open to the bad heart to speak the untrue word. Nor is the untrue word always frankly and broadly spoken. If so, it could be answered in some cases. The false word is hardly spoken at all; it is uttered in a whisper. Falsehood is made to use signs and gestures; even silence is made to bear witness to falsehood. Truly, again we may say: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Tell a lie big enough about any man, and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to do away with the consequences of the false accusation. People will always be found to say: “There must be something in it; it may not be just as rumor has it, but surely a statement of that kind never could have been invented. Allowing a good deal for exaggeration, there must be something in it.” Nor is it always possible to get even righteous men to purge their minds of that damnable sophism. Men who ought to stand up and say “There is nothing in it” hang down their heads, and with a coward’s gesture let the lie pass on. This is how men insult the Son of God, and crucify the Man of truth. They will not be thorough, bold and fearless, and make the enemy ashamed of himself for either having invented or repeated a falsehood. Nor may the man escape because he says he heard the lie. Tell him he may have heard it, but he is yet responsible for repeating it. He may have no control over the hearing, but the moment he repeats it he adopts it, and renders himself amenable to the Eternal Righteousness. Make the very law an instrument of injustice! First charge this man with blasphemy and treason, and then take him out and stone him, that he may die! Do not give him time to speak; do not ask for his defense; do not give him an opportunity of interrogating the witnesses. But who would cross-examine two “sons of Belial?” Better almost to die than to taint the hands and eyes with the touch and look of such children of blackness!