Chapter 10: Dishonesty in Small Matters Inconsistent with Honesty in An… would bring, or to show their spirit, and to face opposition. There is a natural spirit of obstinacy, which is often roused by opposition, that would go to the stake rather than yield a point. But it is easily seen, that it is not true love to the cause which prompts a man to endure opposition, if he will not endure self-denial in little things for the sake of the cause.
7. Little circumstances often discover the state of the heart.
The individual that we find delinquent in small matters, we of course infer would be much more so in larger affairs, if circumstances were equally favorable.
Where you find persons wearing little ornaments from vanity, set them down as rotten at heart. If they could they would go all lengths in display, if they were not restrained by some other considerations than a regard to the authority of God and the honor of religion.
You may see this every day in the streets. Men walking with their cloaks very carefully thrown over their shoulders, so as to show the velvet; and women with their feathers tossing in the air: it is astonishing how many ways there are in which these little things show their pride and rottenness of heart.
You say these are little things. I know they are little things, and because they are little things, I mention them. It is because they are little things, that they show the character so clearly. If their pride were not deeply rooted, they would not show it in little things. If a man had it put into his power to live in a palace, with everything corresponding, it would be no wonder if he should give way to the temptation. But when his vanity shows itself in little things he gives full evidence that it has possession of his soul.
How important it is for you to see this, and to keep a watch over these little things, so as to see what you are, and to know your characters they appear in the sight of God.
How important to cultivate the strictest integrity, such as will carry itself out in small things as well as in large. There is something so beautiful, when you see an individual acting in little things with the same careful and conscientious uprightness as in matters of the greatest moment. Until professors of religion will cultivate this universal honesty, they will always be a reproach to religion.
Oh, how much would be gained if professors of religion would evince that entire purity and honesty on all occasions and to all persons, and do what is just right, so as to commend religion to the ungodly. How often do sinners fix their eye on some petty delinquencies of professors of religion, and look with amazement at such things in persons who profess the fear of God. What an everlasting reproach to religion, that so many of its professors are guilty of these little, mean, paltry knaveries. The wicked have cause enough to see that such professors cannot have any principle of honesty, and that such religion as they exhibit is good for nothing, and is not worth having.
Of what use is it for that woman to talk to her impenitent servant about religion, when her servant knows that she will not hesitate to overreach, and screw down, and cheat, in petty things? Or for that merchant to talk to his clerks, who know that, however honorable