n my life, have lately received more letters than anybody
else urging me to lead a righteous life. I have more friends who want to
see me develop on a high level than anybody else.

Young John D. Rockefeller, two weeks ago, taught his Bible class all
about veracity, and why it was better that everybody should always keep
a plentiful supply on hand. Some of the letters I have received suggest
that I ought to attend his class and learn, too. Why, I know Mr.
Rockefeller, and he is a good fellow. He is competent in many ways
to teach a Bible class, but when it comes to veracity he is only
thirty-five years old. I'm seventy years old. I have been familiar with
veracity twice as long as he.

And the story about George Washington and his little hatchet has also
been suggested to me in these letters--in a fugitive way, as if I needed
some of George Washington and his hatchet in my constitution. Why, dear
me, they overlook the real point in that story. The point is not the one
that is usually suggested, and you can readily see that.

The point is not that George said to his father, "Yes, father, I cut
down the cheery-tree; I can't tell a lie," but that the little
boy--only seven years old--should have his sagacity developed under such
circumstances. He was a boy wise beyond his years. His conduct then was
a prophecy of later years. Yes, I think he was the most remarkable man
the country ever produced-up to my time, anyway.

Now then, little George realized that circumstantial evidence was
against him. He knew that his father would know from the size of the
chips that no full-grown hatchet cut that tree down, and that no man
would have haggled it so. He knew that his father would send around the
plantation and inquire for a small boy with a hatchet, and he had the
wisdom to come out and confess it. Now, the idea that his father was
overjoyed when he told little George that he would rather have him cut
down, a thousand cheery-trees than tell a lie is all nonsense. What did
he really mean? Why, that he was absolutely astonished that he had a son
who had the chance to tell a lie and didn't.

I admire old George--if that was his name--for his discernment. He knew
when he said that his son couldn't tell a lie that he was stretching it
a good deal. He wouldn't have to go to John D. Rockefeller's Bible class
to find that out. The way the old George Washington story goes down it
doesn't do anybody any good. It only discourages people