reputation, if his
selfish purposes might be answered."

"I am sensible," said he, "that I did wrong, but what course shall we
pursue, who are dependent upon our daily labor, for our support?"

"I admit," said I, "that you and others similarly situated, are under a
grievous temptation. But honesty, in the long run, is the best policy.
Acting upon the same principles with the gentleman who has detained you,
_I_ might hereafter refuse to employ you. And others might refuse, whose
work you are probably engaged to perform, but are postponing to gratify
_him_. The consequence of all this is, that your promises will soon pass
for nothing. You will be considered as a man not of your word, and when
once your good name is lost, you will become poorer than you now are,
and remain without employment and without friends."

No one, it is believed, can read the foregoing incident without being
impressed with the great impropriety chargeable upon the gentleman
referred to. The temptation he spread before the poor mechanic was
utterly wrong and unbecoming. It was nothing short of oppression. It was
bringing his wealth to bear upon a point with which it had no legitimate
connection. It was placing self before right; it was a reckless
sacrifice of the interests of others for his own gratification.

That such cases are common, is well known; but their frequency is only a
proof of the slight regard in which the sacredness of promises is held,
and to the violation of which employers frequently contribute by the
temptations which they spread, and the coercion which they practice. We
do not justify for a single moment the mechanics and laborers who
violate their pledges. We insist upon it that it is their solemn duty to
encounter any and every temporal evil rather than sacrifice truth and
conscience; but it is believed they would seldom be guilty of this
violation were they not pressed beyond measure by employers.

We must for a moment again advert to parents. You see, friends, what an
evil exists throughout the community. It is everywhere, and is helping
to work the ruin of immortal souls. It often begins, it is believed, in
the family. Parents are guilty, in the first place, and they early
inoculate their children with the evil. And the infection, once taken,
is likely to spread and to pervade the whole moral system. It enters
into other relations of life. It reaches to other departments of duty,
and tends to destroy our sense of obliga