ON THE SLY by Philip Bennett Power

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 3, 1890

ON THE SLY.

By Philip Bennett Power

A GREAT deal of this allowance of doing things "on the sly" comes from men's having a false standard by which they set their opinions. Their standard is this: Mere human opinion about anything, and not the absolute nature of the thing itself. What follows is, that so long as men keep square outwardly with opinion, they care little as to fact. So, then, provided only it be withdrawn from the censure of public opinion, or that of anyone they are bound to respect, they do not mind doing it "on the sly." The man who has no motive but respect for opinion or authority will never be kept straight. However straight he might be kept in the outer tenor of his life, he will never be in its spirit and reality. Once let him slip away from it—from the eye which he thinks is on him—and he is ready for whatever he desires "on the sly." There is a great deal of truth in the saying about "kissing the evil one through a gridiron."

A vast number of the things which people do on the sly are small things—small in themselves, but with great results. You remember it was the little foxes which destroyed the vines—sly little creatures, able to do tremendous mischief. These small things are pegs on which great things hang. When we trace back the great things of our life, for good or evil, we find almost every one of them dependent on something very small. If such a little thing had not happened, such and such a great thing (for good or evil, as the case may be) would not have happened either.

The deterioration of our character generally comes by "littles," and it is in littles that people generally act "on the sly." Now as to these littles, no one on earth can tell what they will eventually do. No one can tell how big a tree will grow from a little seed. People trifle with things because they are small. There are many people who to-day would do this and that on the sly, in littles, who perhaps would not dream of going out on the sly in more important matters; but they little know what they will do by and by.—Rev. P. B. Power, M.A.