But this is not the only way in which men may transgress this text. There are, be it said to the credit of our race, men who have not much scruple about doing wrong themselves, but who have not so far lost nobleness and generosity of mind as not to shrink from directly tempting others who are as yet free from guilt. They think little of the sin themselves, still they would not have others share their bad experience. However, though they would not like to bring on their souls the sin of directly tempting others, they forget what judgment they are heaping on themselves by their evil example. And here it is that we are all more or less concerned. It may be well to observe that in the paragraph preceding our text the Lord is speaking of little children, and so, we may consider, first, the responsibility of parents. There are but few parents who do not desire to bring up their children well, and to this end are careful to teach them to be truthful and honest, pure, gentle, and unselfish. But of how little avail to teach these things as theories and principles when the example which parents set is precisely the opposite to their teaching! When the head of the family commands his children to attend divine service, but himself does not, what, in fact, is he teaching but to stay away? Or does he think for one moment that the children are so foolish as not to reason thus: If it were really my duty to go to church, would not my father go himself? Why do what my father fails to do? Or if the wife and mother is seen by her offspring to practice deception in little things, resorts readily to untruth, is not "in" when she is "in," and the like, how quick they are to notice it, and grow up to think that truth and honesty are to be held as theories, rather than practiced as virtues. Nor need we restrict it merely to the home sphere, it applies to every other, school, college, workshop, friendship. Without limit is the effect of unconscious example. We uttered it as a mere joke, or what we styled as a harmless way of getting out of a difficulty, but the falsehood we uttered has stuck, and taken root in some one's mind near us, and blossomed into a full-blown way of lying, which he says he learned from us, and defends by our example.