DID HE TELL A LIE?



HOW could he have told a lie when he did not speak a word? Let me tell you what I saw him do. The teacher's back was turned. 

He reached over and struck his neighbor with a pin. 

The teacher heard a shuffling noise and looked round. He was not out of order at all, but was studying the map of Africa very hard. Did he tell a lie?

Sister Susie lost her doll one day. She hunted high and low, but dolly could nowhere be found. He helped her hunt, and seemed as sad as she because of dolly's loss. 

He had hidden that doll in an old stove-pipe up in the lumber-room. Did he tell a lie? 

Uncle Joe and Aunt Mary had come to take dinner at his home. All were ready to enjoy the nice dinner, when to the great surprise and sorrow of his good mother, they found that the meat and potatoes had been sweetened, and the coffee and pudding salted Who could be blamed but Bridget? He had that very morning carelessly emptied the sack of salt into the sugar-bucket. He saw the look of disappointment on his mother's face, but did not explain. Did he tell a lie?

One morning Bridget rushed into the room, saying, "Sure, an' John, the errand boy has left the gate open, an' the cows have ate up all the garden." He was spinning his top at the time. He heard it all, and knew very well that he had left that gate open when he came in, after trading two marbles for a top-string with Bob Summers; but he didn't say a word. Did he tell a lie?

One night father said to mother, "I suppose the shavings were not put too near the stove, and the fire is all out, and everything is safe." He knew the shavings were very near the hearth; he knew, too, that the fire was burning brightly when he locked the kitchen door, but he pretended to be fast asleep. That night their beautiful home was burned to the ground. 

Did he tell a lie? 





Baptist Weekly.