TRUTH

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 6, 1876

There is a tendency of men in life, through the inquisitiveness of some, and through the morbid curiosity or the combativeness of others, to make a bad use of the truth. In the battle of life, in its rivalries, in its conflicts, men do not think it safe to let other people know many things they know, and it may not be safe. It does not follow, because you are to be truthful, that you must tell everything you know. There are thousands of things you have a right to keep to yourself, and that it is every man's duty to conceal; but so far as there is overtness in the matter of speaking, it should be according to the law of truth. It sometimes may be unpleasant, and may produce disturbance, but in the long run it is the safest. It makes a nobler character, wins more confidence, and prepares the future for better achievements than a resort to indiscretions or equivocations.—Sel.