This story is told of a little boy named Willie. He was only about six years old, and was a dear good boy, very much beloved by his family, and all who knew him. Willie’s father had a violin, which he often used to play, for the amusement of his children in the evening.
On one occasion, a neighbor of theirs whose name was Taylor, borrowed this violin, and kept it for a long time. At breakfast time one morning, Willie heard his father say that he wished Mr. Taylor would send his violin back.
When Willie and his brother John, a little older than himself, were coming home from school that afternoon, he said,—”Johnnie, let us go round by Mr. Taylor’s and get papa’s violin.” So they went. When they came near the house, they met Mr. Taylor. Willie went up to him and said, “Mr: Taylor, papa sent me to get his violin.”
“All right,” said Mr. Taylor, “I’ll send it over this evening.”
Now notice, if Willie had simply told Mr. Taylor that his father wanted to have the violin back again, it would have been all right. But his father had not sent him to get it, and when Willie said he had, he did not tell the truth. “After we left Mr Taylor’s,” said his brother Johnnie, in speaking of it afterwards, ” I noticed that Willie was very silent, and seemed troubled about something. I could not tell what was the matter. At last he started, and ran towards home. When I got there, I found him with his face buried in mother’s lap, sobbing and crying as if his heart would break. Mother asked me what was the matter. I was telling her that we had been to Mr. Taylor’s about father’s violin, when Willie looked up, and said, as the tears rolled down his cheeks, “I told a lie! I told a lie!” and then he went on sobbing as before. Pretty soon he went over to a corner of the room, and kneeled down. With his hands clasped, and the tears streaming down his cheeks, he confessed his sin unto God, and prayed earnestly to be forgiven. And what was it which made that dear boy feel so badly on account of the untruth which he had spoken? It was just the thought that his lying would make him an abomination unto the Lord. He felt that he never could have a moment’s peace, till he was sure of God’s forgiveness. About a year after this, the dear boy was taken sick, and died a very happy death. That was Willie’s first and only lie. If he had lived to be a hundred years old, he never would have told another lie, by God’s grace. He would always have remembered what God thinks about lying. And this would have led him to mind the warning against this sin.
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