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Honesty
【Cheating】The Baltimore Orioles of
1894~96 was the best team that baseball had seen up to that time, and also the
craftiest. One of
One day, however, an opposing batter drove a ball to left-center field,
where one of those balls had been hidden. The left fielder picked up the hidden
ball and threw it in. The center fielder, not seeing what his teammate did,
picked up the hit ball and threw it in. The umpire, seeing two balls coming
into second base, called time and then awarded the game to the visiting team by
forfeit.
【Deceit】A humorist told the story
of a driver who put a note under the windshield wiper of a parked car. It read:
“I have just smashed into your car. The people who saw the accident are
watching me. They think I’m writing down my name and address. I’m not. Good
luck.”
【Deceit】A little boy was lost
during the Christmas shopping rush. He was standing in an aisle of the busy
department store crying, “I want my mommy.” People passing by kept giving the
unhappy youngster nickels and dimes to cheer him up.
Finally
a floorwalker came over to him and said, “I know where your mommy is, son.”
The
little boy looked up with his tear-drenched eyes and said, “So do I…just keep
quiet!”
【Deceit】In some resort towns in
Arizona, it is the practice of various hotels or motels to spray-paint the
grass green in the winter to lure tourists to what looks like a lust vacation
spot. The problem is that the first spring rains wash the paint into the
gutters, revealing how false was the image of the picture-perfect lawns.
That’s
the essence of hypocrisy—pretending to be what we are not.
【Deception】The story has been told
of a woman who had acquired wealth and social prominence and decided to have a
book written about her genealogy. The well-known author she engaged for the
assignment discovered that one of her grandfathers was a murderer who had been
electrocuted in Sing Sing. When he said this would have to be included in the
book, the woman pleaded that he find a way of saying it that would hide the
truth.
When
the book appeared, the incident read as follows: “One of her grandfathers
occupied the chair of applied electricity in one of
【Deception】Several years ago on the
Saturday Evening Post cover was a painting by Norman Rockwell that showed a
woman buying a Thanksgiving turkey. The turkey was on the scales and the
butcher was standing behind the counter. The customer, a lady of about sixty,
stood watching the weigh-in. Each had a pleased look, but a quick glance at the
painting shows nothing unusual going on.
Then
we look closely at the entire cover. Rockwell has shown us their hands. The
butcher is pressing down on the scales with a thumb while the woman is pushing
up with a finger. Both would resent being called thieves, but neither saw
anything wrong with a little deception.
【Hypocrisy】Sometimes what's on the outside doesn't
always coincide with what is on the inside. During Mikhail Gorbachev's historic
pre-Christmas meeting with Pope John Paul II, people were amazed to hear
Gorbachev speak of religious freedom and the right of people in the
【Hypocrisy】In any great
forest you will find many huge trees. They tower above other trees and appear
to be the very picture of strength and maturity. However, loggers will
sometimes not even bother to cut down these huge trees. At first one wonders,
“Why leave them? After all, a tree that big must contain twice of thrice the
amount of lumber as a smaller tree.”
The
reason is simple. Huge trees are often rotten on the inside. They are the
hollow trees that children’s picture books show raccoons living in. And they
are the trees that are often blown over in a strong windstorm because, while
they appear to be the picture of strength, in fact their hollowness makes them
weak.
This
is the essence of hypocrisy-appearing strong on the outside but follow and rotten
on the inside.
【Hypocrisy】On the French
Riviera, it is such an important status symbol to have a balcony on an
apartment that it is quite common to see balconies painted on the walls of
apartment houses. People even paint wet laundry hanging on a clothesline, just
to give it a touch of reality.
Hypocrisy
is a façade painted just to give it a touch of reality.
【Hypocrisy】Hypocrisy is like
a pin. It is pointed in one direction, and yet as headed in another.
【Hypocrisy】When Howard
Carter and his associates found the tomb of King Tutankhamen, they opened up
his casket and found another within it. They opened up the second, which was
covered with gold leaf, and found a third. Inside the third casket was a fourth
made of pure gold. The pharaoh’s body was in the fourth, wrapped in gold cloth
with a gold face mask. But when the body was unwrapped, it was leathery and
shriveled.
Whether
we are trying to cloak a dead spiritual life, or something else, in caskets of
gold to impress others, the beauty of the exterior does not change the absence
of life on the interior.
【Hypocrisy】A father
complained about the amount of time his family spent in front of the
television. His children watched cartoons and neglected schoolwork. His wife
preferred soap operas to housework. His solution? “As soon as the baseball
season’s over, I’m going to pull the plug.”
【Honesty】On his way to
school one day, a young man found two canvas sacks lying in the street. When he
looked inside he was amazed to see that the sacks were full of money-$415,000,
in fact! When he returned the money to the Princeton Armored Service, he
received a reward of $1,000. The youth, however, was unhappy and said he had
expected a larger reward. “I don’t understand it,” he complained. “If I had to
do it over again, I’d probably keep the money.”—
【Honesty】In 1924, Liberty
magazine sent out a hundred letters to people selected at random throughout the
U.S. Each letter contained a one-dollar bill and explained that it was an adjustment
of an error that the addressees had complained of-which they had actually never
done. Of the hundred recipients, only twenty-seven returned the dollar and said
it was a mistake.
In
1971,
【Honesty】The story has
been told of a bank employee who was due for a good promotion. One day at lunch
the president of the bank, who happened to be standing behind the clerk in the
cafeteria, saw him slip two pats of butter under his slice of bread so they
wouldn’t be seen by the cashier.
That
little act of dishonesty cost him his promotion. Just a few pennies’ worth of
butter made the difference. The bank president reasoned that if an employee
cannot be trusted in little things he cannot be trusted at all.
【Honesty】Adam Clarke was
an assistant in a dry-goods store, selling silks and satins to a cultured
clientele. One day his employer suggested to him that he try stretching the
silk as he measured it out; this would increase sales and profits and also
increase Adam’s value to the company. Young Clarke straightened up from his
work, face his boss courageously, and said, “Sir, you silk may stretch, but my
conscience won’t!”
God
honored Adam Clarke for being an embodied conscience by taking him from the
dry-goods store and fitting him to write a famous commentary on the books of
the Bible.
【Honesty】Dr. Madison
Sarratt, who taught mathematics at