rectitude of such persons is nothing more than a mask, disguise, and craft."[1] These are considerations which need to be earnestly reflected upon.
Let us now turn to the less direct, but far more common, forms of breaking this Commandment:—"Impositions, unlawful gains, usuries and exactions." To practice imposition or deception of any kind, in daily business, is stealing. A merchant, for instance, who "deceives in weight, measure, or accounts," who, in order to sell his goods, represents them to be different from what they are, or by his silence permits them to pass for what they are not, sins against this Commandment. It is painful to think what a sweep the precept, viewed in this light, would make through the community, if it fell upon all (as it one day will fall) who properly come under its condemnation. How many are there who make a daily practice of deceiving in their business, either as to weight or measure, or, especially, as to quality,—stating to those who come to buy of them, that an article is of this or that quality, when they know it to be otherwise, thus receiving value from the purchaser, without giving an equivalent! Does not the Lord, who is looking down upon that man, and sees into his heart, mark this act as theft, as much as if he put his hand into his neighbor's purse? And it is more than theft: it is falsehood also. Yet, day after day, is this fraud practised and this Divine Commandment broken by men holding a respectable position in society; and they go home at night to their families, and lay their heads upon their pillows,
- ↑ Apocalypse Explained, n. 972.
