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the following manner; Having been one day ordered to carry a bottle of wine to a sick man, one of my master's parishioners, I accidentally broke the bottle, and of course lost the wine, What was to be done? Should I confess my misfortune, and acknowledge my carelessness, or conceal it by a lie? After some deliberation, I resolved upon the lie.— I therefore had made up my story, ‘how the poor man sent his duty to my master, and thanked him a thousand times, and that he was a little better, and that his wife said she thought this wine would save his life.' Being thus prepared, as I was returning home, I met a pedlar, of whom I bought for a penny a little book containing a story of a woman at Dervizes, who was struck dead ou the spot for telling a lie. To be sure it was Heaven sent the pedlar to me, to save me from the sin I was going to commit. ‘If this woman was struck dead for a lie, (said I to myself) why may not I?“ I therefore went directly home, and made a confession of my negligence and misfortune. And it was well for me I did; for the sick man, whose duty and thanks I had wickedly intended to carry to my master, was dead, as I understood afterwards, three hours before the bottle was broken. From this time, therefore, I began to see, what I am now fully convinced of, that besides the sinfulness of lieing, it is always more for the interest and lasting comforts of servants to confess the truth at once, than to conceal a fault by falsehood, When a servant has told a lie, he is always in danger of its being found out, and sooner or later it
