91 Sermon Illustrations on Integrity

A fountain pen salesman persuaded a merchant to order five hundred pens. He was writing the order in his notebook when suddenly the merchant exclaimed, "Hold on! I'm cancelling that order!" and turned to wait on a customer. The salesman left the store in angry perplexity. Later, the merchant's bookkeeper asked, "Why did you cancel that pen order?" "Why?" responded the man. "Because he talked pens to me for a half-hour, using a number of forcible arguments, and then booked my order with a lead pencil."

A small boy was on the witness stand in an important lawsuit. The prosecuting attorney cross-examined him, then delivered, he thought, a crushing blow to the testimony. "Your father has been telling you how to testify, has he not?" "Yes," the lad replied and did not hesitate with the answer. "Now," said the lawyer triumphantly, "just tell us how your father told you to testify." "Well," the boy said modestly, "Father told me the lawyers would try to tangle me in my testimony, but if I would just be careful to tell the truth, I could repeat the same thing every time."

"A straight pillar, the more you lay upon it, the straighter it is, and the more stable; but that which is crooked boweth under the super-incumbent weight: so the more God loadeth the godly the more doth he hold fast his integrity, while, on the other hand, the more the Lord casteth in upon carnal men, the more is their spirit perverted." A little leaning from the right line is a serious thing: uprightness alone is safety. As our author well says, an upright column will bear anything; it would be hard with any known force to crush an erect pillar. So, when a man is upright before God, neither the weight of good or of ill can overthrow him: he stands in his integrity alike under prosperity and adversity, under fawnings or frownings. When the foundations of the earth are removed, he bears up the pillars thereof. He is like Mount Zion, which can never be moved, but abideth for ever. "Let uprightness and integrity preserve me": these are a sure preservative in the day of trial. The man who gives way to leanings or inclinations out of the straight line is never safe. It is only necessary to supply sufficient pressure and he falls. Whether he be loaded with wealth or pressed with poverty, he will come to the ground with equal certainty in due time. He is out of the perpendicular, and he must fall sooner or later. O Lord, give me to stand before thee in perfect uprightness of heart! Take from me any inclination to the right hand or to the left, and establish me upon the eternal basis of thy grace, for Jesus' sake. Upright Lord, thou alone canst set me upright, and keep me so; hearken to my prayer, I beseech thee.

A Christian is called to refrain from some things, which, though actually right, yet will not bear a good appearance to all men. I once judged it my duty to refuse a considerable sum of money which I might lawfully and fairly have received, because I considered that my account of the matter could not be stated to some, to whom a different representation would be made. A man who intends to stand immaculate, and, like Samuel, to come forward and say, "Whose ox, or whose ass, have I taken?" must count the cost. I knew that my character to me was worth more than this sum of money. By probity, a man honors himself. It is the part of a wise man to waive the present good for the future increase. A merchant suffers a large quantity of goods to go out of the kingdom to a foreign land; but he has his object in doing so: he knows, by calculation, that he shall make so much more advantage by them. A Christian is made a wise man by counting the cost. R. Cecil.

A lady in England desired to send a parcel to some soldiers about to sail for the Crimea. She found a strange boy, told her story, and appealed to his honor to take the parcel for her. The boy replied, "Trust me: I'm the boy for it." She gave him eighteen-pence,—all she had,—and he ran on his errand, saying, "All's right!" In the parcel, she enclosed a note, requesting early notice of its receipt. The Jura sailed on Thursday; but the post brought no acknowledgment of the parcel. Friday passed, but no note; and the lady began to distrust the boy. On the fourth day, by the last post, came a note from the officer alluded to, saying, that, about seven o'clock on Wednesday, a boy had taken a parcel on board, and requested permission to deliver it to the two men in presence of the captain of the ship and the chief officers of the corps. "Having discharged his duty, the last sound heard amid the splashing of his ears, as he left the ship's side, was the shout, 'Tell that ere lady that I kept my word, and the jackets was in time.'"

Before the Reform Bill, the member for the city usually subscribed fifty guineas to the Edinburgh races; and, shortly after the election of 1841, Mr. Macaulay was applied to on this behalf. His reply is a fine specimen of manly decision. "In the first place," he says, "I am not clear that the object is a good one. In the next place, I am clear, that by giving money for such an object, in obedience to such a summons, I should completely change the whole character of my connection with Edinburgh. It has been usual enough for rich families to keep a hold on corrupt boroughs by defraying the expenses of public amusements. Sometimes it is a ball, sometimes a regatta. The Derby family used to support the Preston races. The members for Beverley, I believe, find a bull for their constituents to bait. But these were not the conditions on which I undertook to represent Edinburgh. In return for your generous confidence, I offer faithful parliamentary service, and nothing else. The call that is now made is one so objectionable, that I must plainly say I would rather take the Chiltern Hundreds than comply with it." W. M. Punshoo.

It is a universal form of dishonesty to try to get goods below their value; and, whenever you do that, you undertake to cheat. The man who wants to get a thing without giving a fair equivalent wants to be dishonest. If it costs, to make a hat, and give a good living to the man that works upon it, and a moderate profit to the man that sells it, three dollars, and you undertake to buy it for two dollars and a half, you undertake to cheat half a dollar. If you attempt to beat a man down, and to get his goods for less than a fair price, you are attempting to commit burglary as much as though you broke into his shop to take the things without paying for them. There is cheating on both sides of the counter, and, generally, less behind it than before it. You want a man to build you, for two thousand dollars, a house that shall be worth five thousand; and what is the result? You teach that man to cheat you. You make him dishonest. You drive him to the necessity of using poor material, and of deceiving you by filling up holes with putty, and covering defects with paint. Beecher.

True Self. "Why did you not pocket some of those pears?" said one boy to another. "Nobody was there to see you."—"Yes, there was: I was there to see myself; and I never mean to see myself do a mean thing."

I knew a lady whose screams at the sight of a spider were almost as loud as if the house were on fire, and a gentleman who seldom spoke of a common shower without using the expression, "It rained cats and dogs;" and the consequence was, that the scream of the one seldom alarmed me, and the description of the other seldom surprised me. Young people will soon be aware, if their teachers are in the habit, in this sense, in making much out of little. Avoid all exaggeration, and be sober, modest, and truthful in all your observations. A whining beggar, who took up his accustomed stand at the corner of a street, accosted a Quaker, who was in the habit of passing that way. "Have pity upon me!" said he, "and give me a halfpenny to buy me a bit of bread; for I have not broken my fast to-day."—"I should pity thee," replied the Quaker, "if I believed thee; but, as thou hast said exactly the same thing every day for the last fortnight, I do not believe there is a word of truth in thy story. Mogridge.

When the immortal Sidney was told that he might save his life by telling a falsehood by denying his hand-writing, he answered, "When God hath brought me into a dilemma, in which I must assert a lie, or lose my life, he gives me a clear indication of my duty; which is to prefer death to falsehood."

Mr. Labouchère had made an agreement, previously to his decease, with the Eastern Counties Railway, for a passage through his estate near Chelmsford, for which the company were to pay thirty-five thousand pounds. When the money had been paid, and the passage made, the son and successor of Mr. Labouchère, finding that the property was much less deteriorated than had been expected, voluntarily returned fifteen thousand pounds of the amount to the company. Quarterly Review.

A Russian was travelling from Tobolsk to Beresow. On the road, he stopped over night at the hut of an Ostiack. In the morning, on continuing his journey, he discovered that he had lost his purse, containing about one hundred rubles. The son of the Ostiack, a boy of fourteen years of age, found the purse while out hunting; but, instead of taking it up, he went and told his father, who was equally unwilling to touch it, and ordered the boy to cover it with some bushes. A few months after, the Russian returned, and stopped at the same hut; but the Ostiack did not recognize him. He related the loss he had met with. The Ostiack listened very attentively; and, when he had finished, "You are welcome," said he. "Here is my son, who will show you the spot where it lies. No hand has touched it but the one which covered it, that you might recover what you had lost." Percy.

In a country school, a large class were standing to spell. I put a very hard word to the scholar at the head, and he missed it: I passed it to the next, and the next, and so on through the whole class, till it came to the last scholar, — the smallest of the class, — and he spelled it right, — at least I understood him so; and he went to the head, above seventeen boys and girls, all older than himself. I then turned round, and wrote the word on the blackboard, so that they might all see how it was spelled, and learn it better. But no sooner had I written it than the little boy at the head cried out, "Oh, I didn't say it so, Miss W.; I said e instead of i:" and he went back to the foot, of his own accord, quicker than he had gone to the head. He was too honest to take any credit that did not belong to him. Family Treasury.

During the American Revolution, while Gen. Reed was President of Congress, the British commissioners offered him a bribe of ten thousand guineas, to desert the cause of his country. His reply was, "Gentlemen, I am poor, very poor; but your king is not rich enough to buy me."

Andrew Marvell, while holding a position of influence, was waited upon by his old schoolfellow, the Lord Treasurer Danby of London. At parting, the lord-treasurer slipped into his hands an order upon the treasury for a thousand pounds; and then went into his chariot. Marvell, looking at the paper, called after the treasurer, "My lord, I request another moment." They went up again to the garret; and Jack the servant-boy was called. "Jack, what had I for dinner yesterday?"—"Don't you remember, sir? you had the little shoulder of mutton I bought from the woman in market."—"Very right. What have I for dinner to-day?"—"Don't you know, sir, that you made me lay up the blade-bone to broil?"—"'Tis so: very right. Go away. My lord, do you hear that? Andrew Marvell's dinner is provided. There's your piece of paper: I want it not. I know the sort of kindness you intended. I live here to serve my constituents. The ministry may seek men for their purpose: I am not one of them."

In the days of Washington, two candidates applied for a certain office. One was a warm friend and life-long associate of Washington; the other, decidedly hostile to the politics of Washington, arrayed himself in the ranks of the opposition. It was supposed that Washington would decide for his friend; but, to the surprise of all, the enemy was appointed to office. Upon being remonstrated with upon the injustice of the appointment, Washington replied, "My friend I receive with a cordial welcome to my house, and welcome to my heart; but, with all his good qualities, he is not a man of business: his opponent is, with all his hostility to me, a man of business. My private feelings have nothing to do in this case: I am not George Washington, but President of the United States. As George Washington, I would do this man any kindness in my power; but, as President, I can do nothing."

Aristides judging between two private persons, one of them declared that his adversary had greatly injured Aristides. "Relate, rather, good friend," said he, "what wrong he hath done thee; for it is thy cause, not mine, that I now sit judge of." Being desired by Simonides, a poet of Chios, who had a cause to try before him, to stretch a point in his favor, he replied, "As you would not be a good poet if your lines ran contrary to the just measures and rules of your art; so neither should I be a good judge, or an honest man, if I decided aught in opposition to law and justice."

Many of the mosques at Cairo are doubtless monuments of sincere piety; but not a few have certainly originated in ways far from creditable to their founders. I passed by one, a handsome building, respecting which I was told the following anecdote. The founder, on the first occasion of opening his mosque for the ceremonials of the Friday prayers, invited the chief 'Ulama to attend the service; and each of these congratulated him before the congregation, by reciting some tradition of the prophet, or by some other words of an apposite nature excepting one. This man the founder addressed, asking wherefore he was silent "Hast thou nothing to say," he asked, "befitting this occasion?" The man thus invited readily answered, "Yes. If thou hast built this mosque with money lawfully acquired and with a good intention, know that God hath built for thee a mansion in paradise, and great will be thy felicity. But if thou raises this temple by means of wealth unlawfully obtained, by money exacted from the poor by oppression and tyranny, know that there is prepared for thee a place in hell, and evil will be the transit thither." The latter was the case; and, within a few hours after he had thus spoken, the only one among the company of 'Ulama who had dared to utter the language of truth on this occasion—to do which, indeed, required no little courage—suddenly died, a victim, as was well known, of poison. Mrs. Poole

One of the sudwest things about human nature is, that a man may guide others in the path of life, without walking in it himself; that he may be a pilot, and yet a castaway. — Anon. — If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divino that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. — Shakespeare.

A young African prince, educated in France, received heartily the principles of religion, and, being urged to avenge an insult, said, "Is there, then, one revelation for soldiers, and another for merchants and gownmen? The good father to whom I owe all my knowledge has earnestly inculcated forgiveness of injuries done me, assuring me that a Christian was by no means to retaliate abuses of any kind." It was urged upon him as an affair of honor; and he bravely met and disarmed his adversary, but refused to stay longer in a country where principles were one thing, and practice so entirely different.

Themistocles conceived a plan for the aggrandizement of Athens, and asked an assembly of the people to appoint a man to decide upon it. Aristides the Just was named; and, when he heard the plan, he declared that nothing could be more to the advantage of Athens, but nothing could be more unfair. The project was therefore abandoned.

A pious sergeant of a colored regiment at Point of Rocks, when invited to take part in a meeting, said, "Pears like I could say more in five minutes dan I could live all my life long." Words are but wind; life is real; but, when both are in harmony, their influence is mighty.

Spencer tells of a king who went about his kingdom feigning sickness, when everybody had a remedy for his complaint; and he was a fool who was not a physician. So it is everywhere. He is a fool that cannot teach others the way, whether he walks in it himself or not.

Be simple, be unaffected, be honest, in your speaking and writing. Never use a long word where a short one will do. Call a spade a spade, and not a well-known oblong instrument of manual husbandry; let home be home, not a residence; a place a place, not a locality; and so of the rest. Where a short word will do, you always lose by using a long one. You lose in clearness; you lose in honest expression of your meaning; and, in the honest opinion of all men who are qualified to judge, you lose in reputation for ability. The only true way to shine even in this false world is to be modest and unassuming. Falsehood may be a very thick crust; but, in the course of time, truth will find a place to break through. Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us; but simplicity and straight-forwardness are. Write much as you would speak; speak as you think. If with your inferiors, speak no coarser than usual; if with your superiors, no finer. Be what you say; and, within the rules of prudence, say what you are. Dean Alford.

One of Artaxerxes' favorites, ambitious of getting a place possessed by one of the king's best officers, endeavored to make the king suspect that officer's fidelity; and to that end, sent information to court full of calumnies against him, persuading himself that the king, from the great credit he had with his majesty, would believe the thing upon his bare word, without further examination. Such is the general character of calumniators. The officer was imprisoned; but he desired of the king before he was condemned, that his cause might be heard, and his accusers ordered to produce their evidence against him. The king did so; and as there was no proof of his guilt but the letters which his enemy had written against him, he was cleared, and his innocence fully confirmed by the three commissioners who sat upon his trial. All the king's indignation fell upon the perfidious accuser, who had thus attempted to abuse the confidence and favor of his royal master.