Small Deceits by H. W. Beecher; H. L. Bostwick

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 7, 1872

Small Deceits.

By H. W. Beecher; H. L. Bostwick

MEN at first deceive, knowing it; but by the constant use of deception they cease to even know that they are doing it. Gradually it blinds the moral sense. And it is in this direction that great lies are less harmful than little ones. Men think a great black lie is very culpable. I suppose it is. But when an armorer wishes, by scouring, to cut the very surface of metal down, what does he do? Take a bar of iron and rub it? No; he takes emery. Its particles are as small as a pin’s point; and these he puts on, and, by scouring, he cuts down the surface—takes off the enamel. You think that a great lie is a great sin, and a great shame to man; but after all, these little lies are more dangerous, because there are so many of them; and because each of them is diamond pointed. And these little petty untruths which are so small that you do not notice them, and so numerous that you cannot estimate them, are the ones that take off the very enamel of the moral sense—cut away its surface. And men become so accustomed to it, that they do not recognize that they are putting things in false lights, when, by word, by deed, by indirections, by exaggerations, by shifting the emphasis, by various dynamical means, they present things, not as they see them, but as they want to see them.

This phantasmagoric process by which men are throwing false lights upon action and motive, upon what is happening and going to happen; the ten thousand little modes by which men are seeking to pervert things, and make them seem different from what they really are; the petty falsenesses to which men resort in order that they may realize their vain, ambitious life—these are pernicious and demoralizing in the extreme. And the habit of employing them wears the character more than a great rousing lie told six times a year would do. Yet there are men, who, if they are convicted of falsehood in a great transaction, would lose their character forever. Their neighbors would say of them, “We cannot trust such men as they are.” And those very persons who say they would not trust them, do not hesitate to indulge themselves in five million petty falsehoods, little midgets of lies, in the course of a year. A lion is to be dreaded, to be sure; but deliver me from those blood-sucking insects which make me smart and suffer! A single mosquito is not much; but a multitude of them, myriads of them, amount to a great deal. And it is this falsehood in little things that tends to dim, to obscure, to almost obliterate, a sense of truth. There are men who have almost entirely lost their sense of proportion, their appreciation of magnitude, and their understanding of the connection between cause and effect. They look at everything in the light of what they want, so much, that they think that is true which they desire to have true.—H. W. Beecher.

“IF GOD SHALL BLESS ME.”

In years long past, I said, if God shall give Me certain blessings,—cause my path to lead Through ways of comfort,—grant me long to live, And strength sufficient for life’s utmost need, Much joy shall through these channels flow If God shall bless me so. Friends, and fair honors, should he grant me these, Home-love and children, and some skill to grasp From the rich world its opportunities,— What more could heart desire, or full hands clasp? Surely my life like some glad tune shall go, If God shall bless me so. But now, I say, “If God shall grant me Heaven,” And so end there. If at length may come Into his presence who himself hath given, All better gifts must live in that vast sum. No good thing there shall be withheld I know, —If God shall bless me so! —H. L. Bostwick.