CHAPTER VI.

LIES OF CONVENIENCE.

I HAVE now before me a very copious subject; and shall begin by that most common lie of convenience; the order to servants, to say "Not at home;" a custom which even some moralists defend, because they say that it is not lying; as it deceives no one. But this I deny ;-as I

know it is often meant to deceive. I know that if the person, angry at being refused admittance, says, at the next meeting with the denied person, "I am sure you were at home such a day, when I called, but did not choose to see me," the answer is, "Oh dear, no ;-how can you say so? I am sure I was not at home;-for I am never denied to you;" though the speaker is conscious all the while that "not at home" was intended to deceive, as well as to deny. But, if it be true that "not at home" is not intended to deceive, and is a form used merely to exclude visiters with as little trouble as possible, I would ask whether it were not just as easy to say, 66 my master, or my mistress, is engaged; and can see no one this morning." Why have recourse even to the appearance of falsehood, when truth would answer every purpose just as well?

But if "not at home" be understood amongst equals, merely as a legitimate excuse, it still is highly objectionable; because it must have a most pernicious effect on the minds of servants, who cannot be supposed parties to this implied compact amongst their superiors, and must therefore understand the order literally; which is, "go, and lie for my convenience!" How then, I ask in the name of justice and common sense, can I, after giving such an order, resent any lie which servants may choose to tell me for their own convenience, pleasure, or interest?

Thoughtless and injudicious, (I do not like to add,) unprincipled persons, sometimes say to servants, when they have denied their mistress, "Oh fye! how can you

tell me such a fib without blushing? I am ashamed of you! You know your lady is at home;-well;-I am really schocked at your having so much effrontery as to tell such a lie with so grave a face! But give my compliments to your mistress, and tell her, I hope that she will see me the next time I call ;"-and all this uttered in a laughing manner, as if this moral degradation of the poor servant were an excellent joke! But on these occasions, what can the effect of such joking be on the conscious liars? It must either lead them to think as lightly of truth as their reprovers themselves, (since they seem more amused than shocked at the detected violation of it,) or they will turn away distressed in conscience, degraded in their own eyes, for having obeyed their employer, and feeling a degree of virtuous indignation against those persons who have, by their immoral command, been the means of their painful degradation ;nay, their master and mistress will be for ever lowered in their servant's esteem; they will feel that the teacher of a lie is brought down on a level with the utterer of it; and the chances are that, during the rest of their service, they will without scruple use against their employers the dexterity which they have taught them to use against others.*

As I feel a great desire to lay before my readers the strongest arguments possible, to prove the vicious tendency of even the most tolerated lie of convenience; namely, the order to servants to say " Not at home;" and as I wholly distrust my own powers of arguing with effect on this, or any other subject, I give the following extracts from Dr Chalmers's "Discourses on the Application of Christianity to the Commercial and Ordinary Affairs of Life;"-discourses which abundantly and eloquently prove the sinfulness of deceit in general, and the fearful responsibility incurred by all who depart, even in the most common occurrences, from that undeviating practice of truth which is every where enjoined on Christians in the pages of holy writ. But I shall, though reluctantly, confine myself in these extracts to what bears immediately on the subject before us. I must however state, in justice to myself, that my remarks on the same points were not only written, but printed and published, in a periodical work, before I knew that Dr Chalmers had written the book in question.

"You put a lie into the mouth of a dependent, and that for the purpose of protecting your time from such an encroachment as you would not feel to be convenient or agreeable. Look to the little ac

But amongst the most frequent lies of convenience are those which are told relative to engagements, which they who make them are averse to keep.

Headachs, bad

count that is made of a brother's and sister's eternity. Behold the guilty task that is thus unmercifully laid upon one who is shortly to appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Think of the entanglement that is thus made to beset the path of a creature who is unperishable. That, at the shrine of Mammon such a bloody sacrifice should be rendered, by some of his unrelenting votaries, is not to be wondered at; but, that the shrine of elegance and fashion should be bathed in blood:-that soft and sentimental ladyship should put forth her hand to such an enormity;-that she who can sigh so gently, and shed her graceful tear over the sufferings of others, should thus be accessary to the second and more awful death of her own domestics;-that one, who looks the mildest and loveliest of human beings, should exact obedience to a mandate which carries wrath, and tribulation, and anguish in its train. Oh! how it should confirm every Christian in his defiance of the authority of fashion, and lead him to spurn at all its folly and all its worthlessness. And it is quite in vain to say that the servant, whom you thus employ as the deputy of your falsehood, can possibly execute the commission without the conscience being at all tainted or defiled by it; that a simple cottage maid can so sophisticate the matter, as, without any violence to her original principles, to utter the language of what she assuredly knows to be a downright lie;-that she, humble and untutored soul! can sustain no injury, when thus made to tamper with the plain English of these realms;-that she can at all satisfy herself how, by the prescribed utterance of "not at home," she is not pronouncing such words as are substantially untrue, but merely using them in another and perfectly understood meaning;-and which, according to their modern translation, denote that the person, of whom she is thus speaking, is securely lurking in one of the most secure and intimate of its receptacles.

"You may try to darken this piece of casuistry as you will, and work up your minds into the peaceable conviction that it is all right, and as it should be. But, be very certain that, where the moral sense of your domestic is not already overthrown, there is, at least, one bosom within which you have raised a war of doubts and difficulties, and where, if the victory be on your side, it will be on the side of him who is the great enemy of righteousness.

"There is, at least, one person, along the line of this conveyance of deceit, who condemneth herself in that which she alloweth; who in the language of Paul, esteeming the practice to be unclean, to her will it be unclean; who will perform her task with the offence of her own conscience, and to whom, therefore, it will indeed be evil; who cannot render obedience in this matter to her earthly superior, but, by an act, in which she does not stand clear and unconscious of guilt before God; and with whom, therefore, the sad consequence of what we can call nothing else than a barbarous combination against the principles and prospects of the lower orders, is-that, as she has not

colds, unexpected visiters from the country," all these, in their turn, are used as lies of convenience, and gratify indolence, or caprice, at the expense of integrity.

How often have I pitied the wives and daughters of professional men, for the number of lies which they are obliged to tell, in the course of the year! "Dr is very sorry; but he was sent for to a patient just as he was coming with me to your house."-" Papa's compliments, and he is very sorry; but he was forced to attend a commission of bankruptcy; but will certainly come, if he can, by-and-by," when the chances are, that the physician is enjoying himself over his book and his fire, and the lawyer also, congratulating themselves on having

cleaved fully unto the Lord, and has not kept by the service of the one Master, and has not forsaken all but His bidding, she cannot be the disciple of Christ.

"And let us just ask a master or a mistress, who can thus make free with the moral principle of their servants in one instance, how they can look for pure or correct principle from them in other instances? What right have they to complain of unfaithfulness against themselves, who have deliberately seduced another into a habit of unfaithfulness against God? Are they so utterly unskilled in the mysteries of our nature, as not to perceive that the servant whom you have taught to lie, has gotten such rudiments of education at your hand, as that, without any further help, he can now teach himself to purloin?-and yet nothing more frequent than loud and angry complainings against the treachery of servants; as if, in the general wreck of their other principles, a principle of consideration for the good and interest of their employer, and who has at the same time been their seducer, was to survive in all its power and sensibility. It is just such a retribution as was to be looked for. It is a recoil, upon their own heads, of the mischief which they themselves have originated. It is the temporal part of the punishment which they have to bear for the sin of our text; but not the whole of it; far better for them both that both person and property were cast into the sea, than that they should stand the reckoning of that day, when called to give an account of the souls that they have murdered, and the blood of so mighty a destruction is required at their hands.”

These remarks at first made part of a chapter on the lie of convenience, but thinking them not suited to that period of my work, I took them out again, and not being able to introduce them in any subsequent chapter, because they treat of one particular lie, and not of lying in general, I have been obliged to content myself with putting them in a note.

escaped that terrible bore, a party, at the expense of teaching their wife, or daughter, or son, to tell what they call, a white lie! But, I would ask those fathers and those mothers who make their children the bearers of similar excuses, whether after giving them such commissions, they could conscientiously resent any breach of veracity, or breach of confidence, or deception, committed by their children in matters of more importance. 66 Се

n'est que le premier pas qui coute," says the proverb; and I believe that habitual, permitted, and encouraged lying, in little and seemingly unimportant things, leads to want of truth and principle in great and serious matters; for when the barrier, or restrictive principle, is once thrown down, no one can say where a stop will be put to the inroads and the destruction.

I forgot, in the first edition of my work, to notice one falsehood which is only too often uttered by young women in a ball-room; but I shall now mention it with due reprehension, though I scarcely know under what head to class it. I think, however, that it may be named without impropriety, one of the LIES OF CONVENIENCE.

But, I cannot do better than give an extract on this subject, from a letter addressed to me by a friend, on reading this book, in which she has had the kindness to praise, and the still greater kindness to admonish me.* She says, as follows; "One falsehood that is very often uttered by the lips of youth, I trust not without a blush, you have passed unnoticed; and, as I always considered it no venial one, I will take the present opportunity of pointing out its impropriety. A young lady, when asked by a gentleman to dance, whom she does not approve, will, without hesitation, say, though unprovided with any other partner, "If I dance I am engaged;" this positive untruth is calculated to wound the feelings of the person

Vide a (printed) letter addressed" to Mrs Opie, with observations on her recent publication, " Illustrations of Lying in all its Branches." The Authoress is Susan Reeve, wife of Dr Reeve, M. D., and daughter of E. Bonhote of Bungay, authoress of many interesting publica