p. 19 | THE MODERN LIE

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 16, 1879

THE MODERN LIE.

The modern lie, says Prof. David Swing in the Alliance, glides from the tongue with the lightness and gracefulness of a joke. It is said that an eminent clergyman, having taken refuge in bankruptcy, and having in a few months been seen again with his former carriage and span, explained that he indeed went through bankruptcy, but that his wife drove the carriage around. The falsehood of to-day is so sugar-coated with laughter that even a presbytery or a council cannot do otherwise than hear the dear brother and then take a laugh all around. The Quakers exclude a Christian who would deceive a creditor, but this comes from the fact that the Quakers have never cultivated laughter, and hence they are unable to see the humorous side of such things as the Myers bank or the State savings institution; but we know of no other sect or society which treats what is called falsehood with such undue solemnity. It is well known that there is a society in New York in whose sessions no member is permitted to tell the truth, but on the contrary each member must tell one large un-fact or non-fact or anti-fact at each meeting. If such a society has been formed, they may just as well consider all other societies in the land and all corporations as branch associations. The body need not solicit members—the living generations were born into it.