possible to us in our present experience, until it has sought
to enter into the spirit of Christ, and has brought all its, analysis
and theories of man's moral life to the light of the luminous ethical
personality of Jesus Christ."[1]

[Footnote 1: Smyth's _Christian Ethics_, p. 6.]

In his general statement of "the duty of speaking the truth," Dr.
Smyth is also clear, sound, and emphatic.[1] "The law of truthfulness
is," he says, "a supreme inward law of thought." "The obligation of
veracity ... is an obligation which every man owes to himself. It is a
primal personal obligation. Kant was profoundly right when he regarded
falsehood as a forfeiture of personal worth, a destruction of personal
integrity.... Truthfulness is the self-consistency of character;
falsehood is a breaking up of the moral integrity. Inward truthfulness
is essential to moral growth and personal vigor, as it is necessary
to the live oak that it should be of one fiber and grain from root to
branch. What a flaw is in steel, what a foreign substance is in any
texture, that a falsehood is to the character,--a source of weakness,
a point where under strain it may break.... Truthfulness, then, is
due, first by the individual to himself as the obligation of personal
integrity. The unity of the personal life consists in it."

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., pp. 386-389.]

And in addition to the obligation of veracity as a duty to one's self,
Dr. Smyth recognizes it as a duty to others. He says: "Truthfulness is
owed to society as essential to its integrity. It is the indispensable
bond of social life. Men can be members, one of another in a social
organism only as they live together in truth. Society would fall, to
pieces without credit; but credit rests on the general social virtue
of truthfulness.... The liar is rightly regarded as an enemy to
mankind. A lie is not only an affront against the person to whom it is
told, but it is an offense against humanity."

If Dr. Smyth had been content to leave this matter with the explicit
statement of the principles that are unvaryingly operative, he would
have done good service to the world, and his work could have been
commended as sound and trustworthy in this department of ethics; but
as soon as he begins to question and reason on the subject, he
begins to waver and grow confused; and in the end his inconclusive
conclusions are pitiably defective and reprehensible.[1]

[Footnote 1: Smyth's _Christian Ethics_, pp. 3