Leviticus 19:11

Ye shall not steal.

Stealing discouraged

The illustrious Joseph Priestley tells us in his Memoir that he was influenced in his very earliest life by an act of his mother, who died when he was seven years old. He had returned from visiting his cousins, and had brought home a pin. “Where did you get that pin from, Joseph?” said his mother. “I brought it from my cousins’.” “Then,” she said, “it is not yours--take it back”; and he was gently and lovingly, yet firmly, made to take it back. So great was the impression made on his mind that afterwards not the smallest detail of wrong could he ever think of without being influenced by the recollection of that simple admonition. Such is the influence upon the young life of all that it sees. It is the tabula rasa on which you write your words and thoughts in the deeds that are yet to come. (Dr. Richardson.)

Neither lie one to another.

Discredit gained by falsehood

When Aristotle was asked what a man could gain by telling a falsehood, he replied, “Never to be credited when he tells the truth.”

Truth-telling

I remember some years ago, when living in a country town in Kent, the superintendent of our Sunday School saying: “We are to have an address this afternoon. Mr. Waters has asked to say a few words to us.” True to hit promise he soon came into the chapel, and all eyes were on him. “My dear teachers, you often think you labour in vain, but it is not so; I want to encourage you this afternoon. This last week I have met with two circumstances which have pleased me much. One day I was in my shop, when a stone came through the window. I went to the door; there were a good many boys in the road; I called out, ‘Who broke my window?’ No answer. I then asked several of them, but all said, ‘No, not me.’ Just then a little lad stepped up and said, ‘I am very sorry, sir, but I did it.’ ‘But how is it, my lad, that you own to it? Come in and tell me.’ ‘Sir, I go to the Sunday School, and I can’t tell a lie.’ Well done, John Rolfe, I have come here this afternoon to give you a shilling--not for breaking my window, no, no, but for speaking the truth, and practising what you hear.” (Mrs. Spurgeon.)

Truth a handle to lying

A lie always needs a truth for a handle to it, else the hand would cut itself which sought to drive it home upon another. The worst lies, therefore, are those whose blade is false, but whose handle is true. (H. W. Beecher.)

Prolific lying

One sin entertained fetcheth in another; a lie especially, which being a tinkerly, blushful sin, is either denied by the liar, who is ashamed to be taken with it, or else covered by another and another lie, as we see in Jacob, who, being once over shoes will be over boots too but he will persuade his father that he is his very son Esau. (J. Trapp.)