Now officious lies are really forbidden by God's law as well as injurious ones, though of course not so bad as those. And yet how few act as if they really were sins at all! People will say, "I told lies, perhaps three or four every day, but there was no harm in them." No harm! No harm to other people; no, perhaps not, except by bad example and the loss of confidence in your word and that of others; though there is great harm even in that way. But there is a greater harm than this: it is that which the liar does to the sacredness of truth itself, and, as far as he can, to God who is the eternal truth, who loves truth unspeakably, and requires that we should love it for his sake. He will not allow us to tell the most trivial falsehood, though by it we could save the whole world from destruction, or bring all the souls which have been damned out of hell and put them in heaven. Remember this, then: there are lies which are not injurious, but there are no lies which are not harmful and sinful; no lies for which you will not have to give an account at the judgment of God. Stop, therefore, I beg you at once, this mean, disgraceful, and dishonorable habit of falsehood; it will never be forgiven in confession unless you make a serious and solid purpose against it. Put away lying then at once and for ever, and speak the truth in simplicity; you may sometimes lose by it for the moment, but you will profit by it in the end, both in this world and in the world to come. ------------------- {447} Sermon CXXXVI. Truthfulness. _Wherefore, putting away lying, speak ye the truth every man with his neighbor, for we are members one of another._ --Ephesians iv. 25. St. Paul here teaches us that truthfulness of speech should be a mark of those who profess the true faith. He speaks of the darkness of understanding, the ignorance, the blindness of heart of those who are alienated from the life of God; "but you," he says, "have not so learned Christ. You have been taught the truth as it is in Jesus. You have been taught to put off the old man who is corrupted according to the desires of error, and to put on the new man, who, according to God, is created in justice and holiness of truth: _wherefore_, putting away lying, speak ye the truth every man with his neighbor, for we are members one of another."