Friends in Council — First Series

Truth is a subject which men will not suffer to grow old.   Each age has to fight with its own falsehoods: each man with his love of saying to himself and those around him pleasant things and things serviceable for to-day, rather than the things which are. Truth needs the wisdom of the serpent as well as the simplicity of the dove. He has gone but a little way in this matter who supposes that it is an easy thing for a man to speak the truth, “the thing he troweth;” and that it is a casual function, which may be fulfilled at once after any lapse of exercise.