A Poor Man Is Better Than a Liar

“A poor man is better than a liar.” — xix. 22.

THE imperial standard of weights and measures has been sent by the King into the market-place of human life, where men are busy cheating themselves and each other. Many of these merchantmen, guided by a false standard, have all their days been accustomed to call evil good and good evil. When the balance is set up by royal authority, and the proclamation issued that all transactions must be tested thereby, swindlers are dismayed and honest men are glad. Such is the word of Truth when it touches the transactions of men.

Although society has, in many important aspects, advanced in these later times, it is our wisdom to cast former attainments behind us, and press on for more. Public opinion greatly needs to be elevated and rectified in its judgment of men and things. Society is like a house after an earthquake. Everything is squeezed out of its place. No angle remains square; every pillar is leaning; all is awry. The whirling world of human intercourse is out of joint, and must undergo a grand operation of “reducing” ere its movements become safe or easy.

Although here and there an individual may courageously protest, the great public opinion of the nation practically sets the gentleman high above the man, without waiting to define very precisely what is a gentleman. Exact definitions in this matter would go far to set us right. In misty evenings sharpers get more than their own, and honest men less: day-light would put the parties upon a more equal footing. As long as any sharper, under favour of the thick haze that hangs over the public mind, may, by dint of a good coat, a gold ring, and a stock of impudence, pass himself off as a gentleman, and bear away the substantial benefits attached to that dimly defined rank, the people must lay their account by frequent suffering in purse and person. Every now and then the public is cheated and wounded; but for ourselves, we confess that we do not greatly pity the public. For most of its misfortunes on this side, it has itself to blame. You alighted fawningly on a scare-crow gentleman, guided by his costume and his equipage; and you are now impaled alive on his sharp fleshless arms of sticks and nails. You are suffering, we confess, but we reserve our tears; for if you had looked for a man, you would have found one, and been infolded now in the warm, soft embrace of a brother. A standard has been set up in the market-place to measure the pretences of men withal, and those who will not employ it must take the consequences. According to that standard “a poor man is better than a liar,” if, in the face of that sure index, you despise an honest man because he is poor, and give your confidence to the substance or the semblance of wealth, without respect to righteousness, you deserve no pity when the inevitable retribution comes.

Error in this matter is not confined to any rank: it is as rife in high places as in low. The tendency to trust in quacks seems to be an instinct in human nature, which education and experience can never wholly remove. We sympathize with the denunciations which the sufferers are accustomed to launch against the depredators, and make no effort to shield the delinquents from the blows that fall thick and heavy on their devoted heads. As that part of the business is done heartily, if not very wisely, by the public themselves, we shall step round to the other side, where we can see the castigators, and there endeavour to estimate what share of the blame lies at their own door. “There are two at a bargain;” in every one of these great frauds there are two parties. One alone, however evil in his own nature, could not bring forth any fruits of mischief. Swindlers would not produce much commotion in society if they found no dupes. Rogue and fool are a pair; either is barren if it do not meet its mate. Many are ready to lecture the swindler; — we have a word for the dupe.

“Do not cheat,” is a needful and useful injunction in our day; and “Do not be cheated” is another. The trade of the swindler would fail if the raw material were not plentiful and easily wrought. The reckless life of a son is, indeed, a proof of his own wickedness; but it may- be also a proof of Ms father’s self-pleasing indulgence. Such is the homage paid to wealth, that any man who, with some degree of adroitness, puts on its trappings, will be followed by a crowd of worshippers. “Covetousriess is idolatry.” Not without cause is the definition written in that pungent form. Every species of idolatry begets a kind of sottish blindness: the idolaters lose their common sense: they are given over to believe a lie. The wide-spread sufferings that periodically rend the community, at the discovery of full-grown fraud, are the strokes which our own sin inflicts when it finds the sinners out. If the community would cease to value a man by the appearance of his wealth, and judge him according to the standard of the Scriptures, there would be fewer prodigies of dishonesty among us. When we learn practically to honour true men, although they labour for their daily bread, and turn our back upon liars, although they drive their carriages, we shall be less exposed to the depredations of unjust men, and more under the protection of a righteous God. There is a most refreshing simplicity in the language of Scripture upon these points. This word speaks with authority: it is not tainted with the prevailing adulation of riches. A dishonest man is called a liar, however high his position may be in the city; and the honest poor gets his patent of nobility from the Sovereign’s hand. The honest rich are fully as much interested in this reform as the honest poor. Make this short proverb the key-note of our commercial system, and these epidemic panics will disappear. Get this standard acknowledged in the exchange, and the reformation is accomplished. Let it become the fashion to frown on all falsehood, whether spoken or acted — all unrealities, however specious their appearance; let it become the practice, open and uniform, to honour the honest, as far as he is known, however poor he may be; and swindling will die out for want of food. After each catastrophe people go about shaking their heads and wringing their hands, asking, What will become of us, what shall we do? We venture to propose an answer to the inquiry: From the Bible first engrave on your hearts, then translate into your lives, and last emblazon aloft- on the pediment of your trade temple, this short and simple legend —

“A POOR MAN IS BETTER THAN A LIAR.”