Port Tobacco Times, And Charles County Advertiser

THE RIGHT TO TELL A FALSEHOOD.

"No man," says Wilberforce, "has the right to tell a lie in a jest than he has a right to steal." It was a virtue noted in Aristides and Epaminondas, that they would not lie "even in sport." The great law of Christianity forbids all lying in matters of interest and serious rights, and gives an appendix to this law, forbidding to lie in mirth; for "of every idle word a man shall speak, he shall give account in the day of judgment." Idle words and jestings, or in other language, false words and foolish, are reckoned, by the apostle Paul, among 'things uncomely.' Fables, apologues, parables, or figures of rhetoric, and any artificial instrument of instruction or innocent pleasure are not to be condemned. But he who, without any design of instruction, shall tell lies merely for the sake of making himself or others ridiculous, "hath set something upon his doomsday book which must be taken off by water or by fire, that is, by an unfeigned repentance or a speedy judgment."