“Whoso Loveth and Maketh a Lie.”
By C. Green
THESE words we find in Rev. 22:15. They apply to a certain class found outside the city of God. Two classes of individuals are brought to view in this text; one that makes the lie, another that loves it. The former might tire or get ashamed of his proceedings if the one who loved his falsehoods should reform and say, “We have no more use for your wares; they are unreliable and unsafe for our use.” It is the lover of lies that encourages and prospers the manufacturer of them. The church and neighborhood scandals would never go far, if there were not ready ears to listen to them. So defective are our moral natures, that we are more ready and willing to hear evil of our neighbor, than to listen to comments favorable to his virtues. In this we certainly do not do by him as we would he should do by us. Poor human nature has but little of virtue to spare; yet how many there are ready, thoughtlessly, may be, to rob another even of that little good, by listening to, or circulating some false, or at least unwarrantable, scandal pertaining to that one. Hear what you may, the bad side of a person is more frequently commented on than his or her good qualities. This should not be; especially among those who profess to be followers of Christ, and who have from him the instruction to love others as we love ourselves. There is another class of liars, who prosper from the false and idle stories they tell. Their name is legion; and they flourish and grow in fatness, by feeding the diseased imaginations of a great multitude of novel readers. The one loves the lie, while the other rehearses it. It is hard to tell which of the two is the most to blame. The avidity of the former to consume what the latter furnishes, only encourages the work of demoralization, and renders both unfit for a residence in that holy city. The Bible abounds in admonitions and instruction on this point, and while it counsels us to keep our tongues from evil and our lips from speaking guile, and warns us from taking up a reproach against our neighbor, it also places him that loveth a lie, with him who maketh one, outside of the heavenly Jerusalem. C. GREEN.