A Lie Never Justifiable | Page 4

to speak it. Therefore we who were Federal
prisoners in war-time could not be justified in doing what was a sin
_per se_, and what God was by his very nature debarred from
authorizing or approving. I could see no way of evading this conclusion,
and I determinedly refused to seek release from imprisonment at the
cost of a sin against God.
[Footnote 1: Heb. 6: 18]
At this time I had no special familiarity with ethics as a study, and I
was unacquainted with the prominence of the question of the "lie of
necessity" in that realm of thought. But on my return from army service,
with my newly awakened interest in the subject, I came to know how
vigorous had been its discussion, and how varied had been the opinions
with reference to it, among philosophic thinkers in all the centuries; and
I sought to learn for myself what could be known concerning the
principles involved in this question, and their practical application to
the affairs of human life. And now, after all these years of study and
thought, I venture to make my contribution to this phase of Christian
ethics, in an exhibit of the facts and principles which have gone to
confirm the conviction of my own moral sense, when first I was called
to consider this question as a question.

II.
ETHNIC CONCEPTIONS.
The habit of lying is more or less common among primitive peoples, as
it is among those of higher cultivation; but it is of interest to note that
widely, even among them, the standard of truthfulness as a duty is
recognized as the correct standard, and lying is, in theory at least, a sin.
The highest conception of right observable among primitive peoples,
and not the average conformity to that standard in practice, is the true
measure of right in the minds of such peoples. If we were to look at the
practices of such men in times of temptation, we might be ready to say
sweepingly with the Psalmist, in his impulsiveness, "I said in my haste,

All men are liars!"[1] But if we fixed our minds on the loftiest
conception of truthfulness as an invariable duty, recognized by races of
men who are notorious as liars, we should see how much easier it is to
have a right standard than to conform to it.
[Footnote 1: Psa. 116: II.]
A careful observer of the people of India, who was long a resident
among them,[1] says: "More systematic, more determined, liars, than
the people of the East, cannot, in my opinion, be found in the world.
They often utter falsehoods without any apparent reason; and even
when truth would be an advantage, they will not tell it.... Yet, strange to
say, some of their works and sayings represent a falsehood as almost
the unpardonable sin. Take the following for an example: 'The sin of
killing a Brahman is as great as that of killing a hundred cows; and the
sin of killing a hundred cows is as great as that of killing a woman; the
sin of killing a hundred women is as great as that of killing a child in
the womb; and the sin of killing a hundred [children] in the womb is as
great as that of telling a lie.'"
[Footnote 1: Joseph Roberts, in his _Oriental Illustrations_, p. 580.]
The Mahabharata is one of the great epics of ancient India. It contains a
history of a war between two rival families, or peoples, and its text
includes teachings with reference to "everything that it concerned a
cultivated Hindoo to know." The heroes in this recorded war, between
the Pandavas and the Kauravas, are in the habit of lying without stint;
yet there is evidence that they recognized the sin of lying even to an
enemy in time of war, and when a decisive advantage might be gained
by it. At a point in the combat when Yudhishthira, a leader of the
Pandavas, was in extremity in his battling with Drona, a leader of the
Kauravas, the divine Krishna told Yudhishthira that, if he would tell
Drona (for in these mythical contests the combatants were usually
within speaking distance of each other) that his loved "son Aswatthanea
was dead, the old warrior would immediately lay down his arms and
become an easy prey." But Yudhishthira "had never been known to tell
a falsehood," and in this instance he "utterly refused to tell a lie, even to
secure the death of so powerful an enemy." [1] Although it came about
that Drona was, as a matter of fact, defeated by treachery, the sin of
lying, even in time of war, and to an enemy, is clearly brought out as a
recognized principle of both theory and action among the