In order to practise the human virtues, we need to make a sustained effort, since it is not easy to maintain a spirit of honesty and integrity for any length of time when faced with situations that seem to put our own safety at risk. Take truthfulness, a virtue so clean and pure. Can it be true that it has fallen into disuse? Has the practice of compromise, of 'gilding the pill' and 'putting on a show' finally triumphed? People are afraid of the truth and to justify their attitude they make the shabby excuse that no one practises or tells the truth any more, that everyone has to resort to pretence and lies.

Fortunately this is not so. There are many people, Christians or not, who are ready to sacrifice honour and reputation for the sake of the truth, people who aren't always feverishly turning this way and that in search of 'the warmest place in the sun'. These are the very people who, because they love the truth, are happy to put things right when they discover they have made a mistake; whereas those who begin by lying, those for whom the truth has become merely a high-sounding word to cover up their baseness, such people refuse to make amends.