twilight over Juliet as she entered. Even the antral dusk of an old
reverence may help to form the fitting mood through which shall slide
unhindered the still small voice that makes appeal to what of God is yet
awake in the soul. There were present about a score of villagers, and
the party from the house.

Clad in no vestments of office, but holding in his hand the New
Testament, which was always held either there or in his pocket, Wingfold
rose to speak. He read:

"_Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For
there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that
shall not be know_."

Then at once he began to show them, in the simplest interpretation, that
the hypocrite was one who pretended to be what he was not; who tried or
consented to look other and better than he was. That a man, from
unwillingness to look at the truth concerning himself, might be but
half-consciously assenting to the false appearance, would, he said,
nowise serve to save him from whatever of doom was involved in this
utterance of our Lord concerning the crime. These words of explanation
and caution premised, he began at the practical beginning, and spoke a
few forceful things on the necessity of absolute truth as to fact in
every communication between man and man, telling them that, so far as he
could understand His words recorded, our Lord's objection to swearing
lay chiefly in this, that it encouraged untruthfulness, tending to make
a man's yea less than yea, his nay other than nay. He said that many
people who told lies every day, would be shocked when they discovered
that they were liars; and that their lying must be discovered, for the
Lord said so. Every untruthfulness was a passing hypocrisy, and if they