Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1901 — Honesty in Small Things. [ARTICLE]

Honesty in Small Things.

“Put that back!” exclaimed President John Quincy Adams, when his son took a sheet of paper from a pigeon hole to write a letter. “That belongs to the government. Here Is my own stationery, at the other end of the desk, I always use it for letters on private business.”

This conscientiousness in regard to what many would consider a metre trifle may appear excessive. But thg dividing line between vice and virtue is so fine that the boundary is often unconsciously crossed, and It Is Just as dangerous for a young person to dally with conscience as It is for a child to toy with a dagger, or to play .with fire. He who Is honest lu small things can always be trusted in great. There Is truth not to be ignored in the old-fashioned rhyme: Much more to steal a greater thing. It Is a sin to steal a pin.

No matter how little value the thing we appropriate from another may possess, the fact that it does not belong to us should make It sacred.—Success.