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injure that of others. Intemperance or excessive indulgence of passion and appetite which gradually weakens the constitution, falls within the prohibition of this commandment; as does every known unnecessary exposure of the body to extreme hardship.

From your education and principles, it is presumed that there is little need of cautioning you against a violation of the eighth commandment, by a felonious taking of the property of another, in a manner to incur the penalties of human laws. But the prohibition covers much broader ground-it extends to every species of fraud or deception by which the property of another is taken or withheld from him. If in receiving or paying money, a mistake throws into your hands a sum of money beyond what is your right, it is a violation of the eighth command to retain that sum in you own hands, let it be never so small. You are under the same moral obligation to return the surplus money to the rightful owner, as you are not to take a like sum from him by theft.

In like manner, in trade, the man who by deception, gets a dollar more for an article, than the purchaser would have given, had he not been deceived, is in the view of God, as guilty as if he had taken that dollar from the purchaser's chest.

The man who by an artifice conceals the defects of his goods, or gives them a false appearance, and thus deceives the purchaser, is guilty of fraud; and any money that he may get by this deception is taken as wrongfully as if taken by theft.

The farmer who brings his produce to market, and sells it in a bad state, knowing it to be defective and concealing the defect, or giving a false representation of it, is guilty of fraud and falls within the purview of the eighth command.

The man who adulterates his drugs, and sells them as genuine, certainly violates the eighth command, and may violate the sixth.

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