If you're from the United States of America, you're probably more familiar with the

name Mason Locke Weems than I am.

He was the author of the book The Life of George Washington, which had the delicious subtitle

with curious anecdotes equally honourable to himself and exemplary to his young countrymen.

With a title like that, how could it possibly fail to be a best seller?

And actually, it was when it first appeared in 1800.

But apparently it wasn't until a few years later, in the fifth edition, that Weems included

the story about the six-year-old George Washington and his new hatchet and his father's cherry

tree that has become so famous.

I cannot tell a lie, I did cut it with my hatchet.

Of course, what makes these so famous words somewhat humorous is that apparently there

are a fabrication.

I hesitate to call them a straight-out lie.

I don't mean Washington was telling a lie.

I mean that Mason Locke Weems apparently made up the story.

His motives were good.

He wanted to set Washington before young people as a fine moral example to follow.

But what is slightly curious about this story and ironic is that Mason Locke Weems was

an itinerant preacher, and McGuffey who rewrote the story in his famous reader was a Presbyterian

minister.

But they didn't seem to be telling the full truth about George Washington.

And I think that's sometimes true when we come to this particular commandment.

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