Article May 4, 1912 Issue

BEARING FALSE WITNESS

E. HOWARD GILKEY.

Before he closed the writing of the law of God upon the tables of stone, Moses, reminded of the mutual obligation of honesty which rests alike upon all men, and of the care with which one individual should in righteousness handle the character of his fellows if led to speak of them, wrote, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." It was the mental amplification of the command that had just been uttered, "Thou shalt not steal." The aged lawgiver knew that weak humanity would be tempted to traduce character, even when a sense of decency would remain sufficient to prevent the hands from "picking and stealing" the material possessions of the party assailed.

It would be less harmful, many times, if the despoiler would content himself with such worldly pelf as lay exposed to his hand, rather than that he should by bearing false witness put upon his victim a burden unsuspected but grievous in its effects. One phrase in the writings of the great Shakespear quaintly and forcefully emphasizes the enormity of the crime of false witness; it occurs in Iago's answer to Othello:—

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