"There is, in some persons who appear in all other respects to be
Christian, a strange defect of truth, or truthfulness. They are
not conscious of it. They would take it as a cruel injustice were
they only to suspect their acquaintances of holding such an
estimate of them. And yet, there is a want of truth in every sort
of demonstration they make. It is not their words only that lie,
but their voice, air, action; their every putting forth has a
lying character. The atmosphere they live in is an atmosphere of
pretence. Their virtues are affectations. Their compassions and
sympathies are the airs they put on. Their friendship is their
mood, and nothing more; and yet they do not know it. They mean, it
may be, no fraud. They only cheat themselves so effectually as to
believe that what they are only acting is their truth. And, what
is difficult to reconcile, they have a great many Christian
sentiments; they maintain prayer as a habit, and will sometimes
speak intelligently of matters of Christian experience."

It was the oracular sage, Deacon Bedott, who, in view of the
imperfections of his kind, remarked several times in his life:
"we are all poor creeturs"--a remark that comes as near to being
pure truth as any we meet with outside of the Bible and the
standard treatises on mathematics. We are, indeed, poor creatures.
Our highest conceptions of truth are contemptible, our best
utterances fall short of our conceptions, and our lives are poorer
than our language.

Of all conscious and criminal lying, I know of none that exceeds
in malignity and magnitude that of a political campaign. In such a
struggle, men get in love with lies. They seek apologies for the
circulation of lies. They hug lies to their hearts in preference