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 obligation to God. It weakens our
regard for promises made to the Author of our being. In short, this
disregard for the fulfillment of sacred promises helps to sap the
foundations of moral virtue, and to prepare the soul for a world where
falsehood reigns supreme, and where there is no confidence between man
and man.
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