INDIRECT LYING by Julia H. Duffie

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 6, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 18.

INDIRECT LYING.

By Julia H. Duffie

My friend, if you have really made up your mind to try to deceive some one, go about it in a straightforward way, tell a square falsehood and be done with it; but please don't do that despicable thing, beat about the bush and endeavor to accomplish the very same thing and at the same time save yourself the danger of being caught, and possibly hoping to ease your conscience by persuading it that what you are doing isn't quite so bad as direct falsehood after all.

Any indirect means, by which you seek to cast a coloring which you know to be false, upon the conduct of another, any measure by which you seek to attribute to them motives which you know they would scorn to hold quite as much as yourself, is as much worse than open, direct falsehood as the act of one who strikes another in the back is worse than that of one who meets his enemy openly, granting him equal opportunities with himself.

If you have a charge against another which you are afraid to bring in an open, Bible-appointed way, it is quite likely your charge is false.

This species of false witness is accomplished by various means, by implication, inference, by the sly use of witty illustrations, etc. Sarcasm and ridicule are the well-known weapons of those who lack the weapons of truth and love.

He who seeks in all his dealings with others to be guided by honorable, straightforward principles has no human means of grappling with this slimy serpent of artful misrepresentation. Yet he may calmly wait and rest in the assurance that this sin of indirect lying will eventually, with its less despicable brother, find its way to the lake of fire, to rise no more.

JULIA H. DUFFIE.