The Power of the Tongue

**DecUh and life are in the power of the tongue.*

It is a painful and humiliating thought, that a faculty so noble as speech, a gift so useful as language, should ever be so ignobly employed and basely misused as it often is. God has not endowed us with a faculty or furnished us with an engine more fruitful of good or of evil than this. Of the power of the tongue for miy how strong is the language of the Apostle James, — “The tongvs is a fire, a tvorld of iniquity: so is the Umffiie among our members, that it defileth the whole hdy, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell” These are words terribly significant! Not less strong is the language of God’s Word, touching the power of the tongue for good: — “The tongue of (he just is as chosen silver.’’ “A wholesome tongue is a tree of life!’ “Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it iioop: but a good word maketh it glad” “A word fUly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” “The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that 1 should know how to speak a word in season to 1dm that is weary Thus, what a marvellous instrument of power is human language! As the vehicle of thought, as the channel of love, and as the instrument of intercourse it transcends all others. The tongue of the intelligent instructs us; the tongue of the holy sanctifies us; the tongue of the sympathizing soothes us; the tongue of the faithful admonishes us; the tongue of the loving and the kind is as marrow to the bones; and, transcending all, the tongue that discourses to us of Jesus is as life to the souL Marvellous instrument! possessing a power so great. Capable of producing such great misery or such intense happiness; of being a curse so bitter or a blessing so sweet. “Out of the same mouth,’’ is the language of St. James, ‘proceedeth blessing and cursing”

Before proceeding further with our meditation, let me endeavour to impress you with a solemn conviction of its great practical importance. It is not an idle or speculative subject which now asks your consideratioa It is more closely connected with our individual sanctification and with the solemn transaction of the final judgment than, perhaps, many of my readers may have thought. If, as the Apostle James says, “the tongue is a world of iniquity,’* and if, as the Lord Jesus has forewarned us, — “By thy words shalt thou he justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned,” — then, it takes its place by the side of the most vital and serious subjects that can engage our study. I speak the words of truth and soberness when I remark, that most of the evils which shade the lustre of domestic happiness, empoison the springs of social intercourse, sending their baneful influence along all the channels of society — and most of the strifes and dissensions which mar the harmony and impair the holiness of Christians, may be traced to imguardedness of speech, — to an unbridled, unhallowed use of the tongue. Since speech, as I have remarked, is one of those noble faculties by which man is distinguished from the irrational creation, the thought should never be absent from our minds that, oh its proper or perverted use hangs much of the good or much of the evil that affects human society. As heirs of eternity, nothing that we utter can be deemed trifling or insignificant If our thoughts are indestructible, equally so are the words which clothe them. The air itseK is a vast whispering-gallery, along which travel, as upon its imdulating waves, the thoughts we conceive and the words we utter, onward to the distant shores of the eternity to which they speed; where, though now scarcely noted or soon forgotten, they will meet us again, — rising up as witnesses against us at the great day of judgment, if not cleansed and sanctified by the blood of the Lamb. Such is the solemn subject which is about to engage our study. May the Holy Spirit guide and sanctify our present meditations! May the tongue which is about to speak be touched as with living fire 1 In the first place, we are told that, “death is in the power of the tongue” This — taking a general and comprehensive view of the subject — will apply to all species of evil speaMng, The evil tongue is a polyglot; that is, it speaks as in many languages: its name is legion. Let me specify a few of those particular forms which come under the general head of evil spealdng.

First: there is the tongue of the toMearer — the ofl&cious propagator of idle gossip: a numerous body, alas! is this — greater pests to society do not exist within its bosom. “What lengths will not the talebearer travel, what pains will he not take, what time will he not expend in circulating an injurious report, in giving currency to a dark surmise! It was, perhaps, at first but a conjecture, a rumour, a hearsay; nevertheless, this voracious devourer of evU, this ruthless utterer of base coin, has caught it, — and it now becomes his seKimposed and dreary mission to travel from one end of the town to the other, in one day giving circulation and fixedness to a slander, the sad effects of which years may not entirely obUterata I ask, is there not death in the power of the tongue of an idle, unscrupulous talebearer? But what does the Word of God say concerning such? There is, first, God’s positive command, forbidding the crime, — “ITwu shall not go up and down as a talebearer among the people,’^ What qbserveth Solomon? “J. talebearer revealeth secrets/* ‘’The words of a talebearer [margin, whisperer] are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the Idly’* “Where no wood is, the fire goeth out; so, where there is no talebeaeek [whisperer], the strife ceaseth” ‘’He that uttereth a slandeu is afooV* And what says the holy and indignant Psalmist? *’ Whoso privily 8LANDEBETH Ms neigKbou/T, him will I cut off** Such is the solemn light in which the Scriptures of truth place this form of evil speaking. There is death in it — death to domestic happiness and individual reputation-. Shun the talebearer as you would the touch of a glove infected with the plague; set your face as a flint against him; let him see. by your look that his presence is as distasteful as his mission is abhorrent. ‘’The north wind driveth away rain: so doth an angry countenance a BACKBITING tongue** Thou, idle gossiper! travelling from house to house, retailing thine unholy wares, trafficking in character, reputation, and happiness; thou violator of confidence! imveUing domestic life, within whose sacred precincts unguarded friendship admitted you; thou keen anatomist! visiting abodes for no other purpose than to dissect the character, or the doings, or the sayings of each family or neighbour — while your own dreads most of all the knife and the probe — what are you but a moral epidemic, that walketh in darkness, spreading around you desolation and death; over whom angels might weep and demons do shout, and whom every pious and well-regulated mind shuns, as it shuns the sting of a scorpion or a breath of the plague.

Such, too, is the tongue of slander. The slanderer is not merely the idle gossip, he is more. He is the inventor, or, what is equally criminal, he is the propagator of calumny itseK. Envious of a rival, resolved upon shading the lustre, or bent upon the total extinguishment of a star circling in a wider and brighter orbit than his own, he either coins or gives currency to a lie injurious to the character of some public servant of God, or the reputation and happiness of some private individual moving in the quiet and unobtrusive walks of usefulness. Is there not death in this unhallowed use of the tongue? — no slaying, power in that false report, that base insinuation, that cruel surmise, that

“Soft buzzing slander, that eats an honest name ‘*?

Most assuredly! The treacherous moth is not a more insiduous and dangerous foe to the beautiful fabric it secretly and slowly destroys, nor the worm a more searching and wasting enemy of the costly vellum whose heart it pierces and devours, than he whose tongue is sharper than a sword, —

“Cutting honest throats by whispers.”

It has been truly remarked that against slander there is no eflfectual armour of defence. Nothing is easier than to invent a .slander, and nothing more difl&cult than to annihilate it It generally selects for its victims the most good and worthy, as the birds peck at and destroy the best and loveliest fruit I do not think that Tophet boasts of a darker fiend, or man can deplore a fouler foe than he who deals in it. like the Indian, it dips its arrows in deadly poison; like Judas, it betrays the innocent with the kiss of perfidy. Assassination is its employment, the guiltless its victims, ruin its sport, and the loud laugh of hell its reward! It is a moral pestilence veiled in darkness, — B. thousand fall beside it and ten thousand at its right hand, so immercifully and deeply wounded as often never to recover the anguish of heart it has occasioned. The demon spirit of slander is thus graphically pourtrayed by a Christian poet: —

“The man in whom this spirit enter’d was undone r His tongue was set on fire of hell; his heart Was black as death; his legs were faint with haste To propagate the lie his soul had framed; His pillow was the peace of families Destroyed, the sigh of innocence reproached, Broken friendship, and the strife of brotherhood. Yet did he spare his sleep, and hear the clock Number the midnight watches o’er his bed — Devising mischief more; and early rose And made most hellish meals of good men’s names.” *

To these must be added the backbiter — the calumniator of the absent Of all evil speaking this is, perhaps, the meanest, the most cruel and dastardly. Taking advantage of the defenceless position of his victim, — PoUok. asserting behind his back what he would not dare to utter before his face, — by dark insinuations, by mysterious inuendos, by a tragic tone, — or, as Hannah Moore expresses it, “by a significant shrug of the shoulder,” — the backbiter will give aflFected importance and authenticity to what all the while he knows to be unfounded in truth; and by this base means do serious and, perhaps, irreparable injury to the character and good name of an innocent, and, it may be, useful servant of the Lord; who, by his absence, is precluded from either defending his innocence or confounding his calumniator. How pointed and pungent are the Divine denunciations of all such, — ‘’Lordy who shall abide in Thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in Thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly and worTceth righteousness and speaheth truth in his heart. He that BACKBITETH NOT with his tougus, nor doeth evil to his neighbours, nor taketh v/p a reproach against his neighbour’’ If such only have a place in God’s tabernacle, if only such dwell upon His holy hill, — if the slanderer and the backbiter are excluded thence, — alas! how great will be the number thus excluded! How sad and unenviable, then, the character of the evilspeaker, the slanderer, the whisperer, the backbiter, the talebearer, the gossip! What are all these but domestic pests, — propagators of a social moral plague? Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongue they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lyps,^ “0, my sout, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly mine honour he not thou tmited’*

Under this head we must class the anonywAms disseminator of eviL The pen is a powerful auxiliary of the tongue, and gives permanence to its words, as the press gives to them wings. The anonymous propagator of evil must be classed among the most dangerous, as the most infamous vipers of the community: he is a concealed assassin. An individual may imagine that he sees just reasons for personal concealment in the act of doing a good service; but, even viewed in this point of light, the morality of anonymous communications is at best but dubious. What is it but wearing the assassin’s cowl, — assuming the murderer’s mask t It is the adoption of a mode of doing us a supposed good by a Mend, which public sentiment looks upon and condemns as only befitting the secret and sworn foe. If you wish to warn an individual of a danger, or to apprise him of any evil, or to teU him of a fault, three courses are open to you. Either go to him yourself and tell him; or, write to him, with your signature; or, enlist the ofl&ce of a mutual friend. If neither of these modes commend themselves to your judgment and feelings, then it is plainly your duty to do nothing. If you are not willing to save an individual, when in your power, at the expense of a little personal feeling, then your friendliness is not sufficient to entitle you to meddle in any way with his aflfairs. An individual’s name is a guarantee of his honourable and truthful procedure: his name on paper represents himself. Acting thus openly and avowedly, he is invested by a safeguard which silently yet effectually restrains him from many temptations which would sorely assail him if he were consciously unknown. He is, perhaps, restrained from taking a false step, or from committing himself to a dishonourable action, or from doing an unwise thing injurious to himself or another, from a consideration of the compromise in which it would inevitably involve the integrity of his character and the honour of his name.

But what shall we say of the concealed foe? — the man who writes unfavourably of a third party; who seeks to separate very friends, to sow the seeds of discord in families, to make mischief in neighbourhoods and in Churches by anonymous communications, whether true or false? What can we say of him who, under cover of darkness, thus seeks to stab another’s feelings, or reputation, or hopes, but that, in the strong language of God*s Word, he is a “child of the devil” doing his work with his father’s zeal and fidelity. Less than this we dare not say of the individual who has the ineffable meanness to write and propagate slanderous reports and false statements of a feUowcreature, while seeking to escape all responsibility of the cowardly act by concealing his name. It is a species of moral assassination of the deepest dye, branding the murderer as an outlaw of society; and every good and honest man will so denounce it.

“The man that dares traduce, because he can
With safety to himself, is not a man:
An individual is a sacred mark,
Not to be pierced in play or in the dark.”

From the power of all such our only true deliverance v& prayer. And whose words so suitable as David’s? — “Deliver me, Lord from the evil man; preserve me from the violent men which imagine mischief in their hearts; continually are they gathered together for war. They have sharpened their tonnes like a serpent; adders* poison is under their lips. Let not an evil speaker be established in the earth: evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him.”

There is also death in the tongue of the flatterer. Not less pointed and scarcely less severe is the portrait which God presents of the character of the flatterer. Thus is he spoken of: — “jEfe that goeth about as a talehear revealeth secrets; therefore meddle vx)t with him that FLATTERETH with his lips.” “A man that flatter-ETH his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet.” “They speak vainly, every one with his neighbour; with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak. The Lord shall cut of all FLATTERING lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things.” Such is God’s estimate of this character. There are few evils of the tongue Cowper. apparently more innocent and harmless, and yet, in reality, more sinful and dangerous than this. The flatterer places the victim of his eulogy in a false position; he invests him with an untrue, ideal estimate of himself Against this species of praise few are invulnerable: it is natural for mfen to love adulation. Self-flattery is the idol of the human heart, and before the shrine of this their favourite god men delight that others should worship. However conscious they may be of not possessing the qualities commended, and even penetrating enough to discern the hollowness and insincerity of the adulation, — still, the incense is so fragrant and self-satisfying that, while it is felt to be too exaggerated to be true, it yet is too courtly not to pleasa How few possess that humility of mind and refinement of feeling that fortifies against its baneful influence! To some delicately formed minds nothing is more painful and offensive than to be covered with the incense of creature-adulation. And yet, offered to whom and however delicately, in all flattery there is death! Even the most high-minded and refined are not entirely proof against its injurious effects. Man is a fallen being; and to speak to him of his virtues as many, of his infirmities as few, and of his offences as venial, is to ignore his state as a sinner, to soften and refine away the corruptness of his depraved nature, and to come between him and Christ It is to cajole him in his self-righteousness, to foster the delusion that he is “rtcA and increased in goods, and has need of nothing** blinding him to the solemn fact that he is “WRETCHED, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked** Surely there is death in the tongue of the flatterer!

Not less dangerous and equally reprehensible is rdigiaus flattery — flattery as addressed to our fellow-Christians. How conspicuous is this spot upon the Christian profession of many! Is there not a strong habit in us of speaking approvingly and applaudingly of each other’s piety? to commend the spirituality, religious knowledge, and ripeness of Christian experience? And yet how imconscious we may be of the treacherous snare we lay for the feet of a Christian brother or sister, and in so doing, lay for our own! What almost irreparable injury we are doing to his personal piety! To eulogize his gifts, to commend his graces, to extol his experience, to applaud his achievements and his usefulness, is to mar and impair that lowliness of spirit and abnegation of self with which a Christian man should ever walk before the Lord and before his fellows. The corruption even of a saint of God is still so deep, and his sanctification so imperfect — the old Adam still so strong and the new man so feeble — that, the most gracious are not entirely proof against the injury to their spiritual life to which the tongue of flattery exposes them. To say to one Christian, you wish you possessed his spiritual gifts; to

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another, what would you not give to possess his faith; to tell a third, that you envied his power in prayer; a fourth, that he had outstripped you in the Christian race; and to assure a fifth, that his exalted views of Christ and his gigantic grasp of truth put your own spiritual attainments to the blush! — is this language fit to address to a worm of the dust, to a fallen creature, to one like ourselves — a debtor to the free and sovereign gi-ace of God? Surely not: it is cruel, unkind, unchristian; it is acting towards a believing brother as the eagle does to the tortoise, — lifting him to a great height but to make his fall the greater. If a brother does not cpme short in that very gift or grace which you have so unwisely and so highly commended, it is just because Christ has interfered to prevent his fall “Of all wild beasts, preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame ones, a flatterer.” What is flattery but aiding the work of Satan, the great deceiver of our race? There is a proverb, — “When flatterers meet, the devil goes to dinner.” That is, when those traitors to our virtue, happiness, and usefulness confederate against us, Satan’s work is so well done that he has time for other employments. Flattery is the food of courts and not the aliment upon which a true humble-minded believer lives. He desires to walk humbly with God; and yet, without courting himian adulation, to preserve a good name more precious than ointment among his fellows. Johnson.

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fie thus deprecates the evil of flattery, and more especially that of religious flattery. I do not overlook the great difference between a delicate and proper appreciation of piety and merit, and the false and exaggerated praise which in some cases wounds the susceptibility, and in others inflates the vanity of those upon whom it is lavished. To a mind rightly constituted, to a heart in much communion with God, nothing is more painful than undeserved, or even excessive commendation. Yet, as I have remarked, we must discriminate between a fulsome and unmeaning adulation, and kind and encouraging appreciation of those endowments and powers which God has given for the good of man and for the glory of His great name. Thus have we attempted to illustrate the first clause of the text — *’ death is in the power of the tongue:’’ — a death more bitter, to a holy, high-minded individual, than the fatal dart of the last dread foe. More welcome to him the shadow of the tomb draping all the present, than a life lived on amid the cruel strife of false, and the undying taint of defaming, tongues.

But there is a theological view of this first clause of the passage strikingly and solemnly true. There is death in the preachi of the law. The Word of God is a two-edged sword; the law, in its slaying, condemning power, is one edge of this weapon of divine temper. “TAe law worketh death” **/ was alive without the law once*’ says the Apostle,” but when the commandmeTU

came sin revived and I died. And the commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death’* Look not, therefore, man, woman, to the works of the law for spiritual life: it is not an instrument of life, but of death, — not of justification, but of condemnation. And he who has broken, and therefore is under the penalty of God’s law, yet expects to be saved by it, is as infatuated as the criminal, who, under the sentence of death, yet sues out his pardon upon the footing of that very act of the legislature by virtue of which he is condemned. It was a favourite saying of the Countess of Huntingdon, — “I would run away from the law, considered as a covenant of works, as fast as I would from my sins.” The influence of the law upon all religious duties and obedience is much the same as the frost upon the silvery stream: it congeals and hardens them with the rigidity and coldness of death. But the warm rays of the Sun of Righteousness thaws the hardness and dissolves the icy fetters of the soul, and repentance and love then sweetly flow. Oh! see that all your religious duties are evangelical; that is, that they are the result of faith in and of love to Christ. See that they flow from a sight of a crucified Saviour, that they are fruits growing beneath the cross of ImmanueL No fruit of godliness like to that found there! no contrition so deep, no faith so strong, no love so intense, no surrender of the heart so unreserved Truly they are ‘’precious fruits brought forth by the sun!’

There is also decUh in the tongue of him who preaches false doctrine. The minister of soul-destroying error is the minister of deatL AU teaching which is opposed to the Gospel of Christ, which misleads men on their way to eternity by failing to show to them the way of life — all preaching which contravenes the work of the Spirit in regeneration, which substitutes human merit for the atoning work and sacrifice of Christy which builds up men in their own doiogs and works as a meritorious preparation for heaven — all pulpit instruction which tends to lower the holiness of the truth, to relax the bond of moral obligation, to suppress, in the professor of the Grospel, an ardent desire after godliness, — we say all such teaching is fatal to souls, and that, therefore, there is death in the power of the preacher’s tongue. As you value your eternal well-being go not in the way of such false teachers — these murderers of souls; recoil firam them as you would from the wily serpent; reject their ministration as you would the poisoned cup; cease to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge and from the way of life.” Woe unto them that call evU good, and good evil; that jnU dark-Tiessfor light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter’’

But not less true is the second clause of our text, — Life is in the power of the tongue’* God has invested sanctified speech with a life-giving power. There i* a vitality in the hallowed tongue peculiarly its own. This is true of words of kindness and love spoken in cases of mental depression, or on seasons of temporal or spiritual trial ‘’heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: btU a good word maJceth it glad*’ “J word spoken in season, how good is it! A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver Such is the testimony of God’s Word! Who will not say there is life in that tongue? To go to such a one and speak of Jesus, to unfold the fulness of His grace, to tell of the faithfulness of God to His promises, His unchangeable love to His people, to remind the believing soul of the stability of the covenant, of the certain salvation of all who are in Christ Jesus — Oh 1 there is life — sweet, soul-uplifting life — in the power of that tongue that speaks to me words of heart-cheer when it is sad, to my mind words of hope when desponding; that tells me of Jesus when going about and inquiring, — “Have you seen Him whom my soul loveth?”

There is life in the power of the tongue of him who preaches the Lord Jesus Christ. When we preach Jesus we preach the only true life. Jesus is emphatically the Way of life — Yea, He is life itself. “/ have come tJuU ye might have lifer “/ am the Lifer ‘’Wkm Christ, who is our life, shall appear’’ It is impossible, then, to preach the Lord Jesus and not be an instrument of spiritual life. However deficient in acquired lore, and limited in human talent, however iinrecognized by the Church and unhonoured by the schools, the man who makes known the Lord Jesus, the Saviour of sinners, possesses a tongue of life at whose irresistible power the tomb of the soul flies open and spiritual death gives up its prey. Was there no life in those precious words of the manacled Apostles, addressed to the trembling jailer at Philippi, in reply to his momentous inquiry, — ‘’What must 1 do to he sa/oed?” “Believe on the Lord Jesm Christ, and thou shall be saved” But, had the Apostles instructed him. to perform some mighty achievement, to do some great thing of himself; had they told him to trust to the mercy of Grod, to live a. pure and honest life, to give ahns, to build a synagogue, and, then, by completing his round of meritorious doings, to present himself regularly at the sacramental table; there had not been life, but death in the answer. Oh who can estimate the awful results of a ministry in which there is nothing of Christ? Who can gauge the tremendous consequences of such teaching of immortal souls as proves but a “savour of death unto death” / But he who lifts up the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Saviour of sinners. His work the only salvation of the soul. His cross the only way to glory, — he who proclaims the all-sufficiency of His merit, the guilt-cleansing efficacy of His atoning blood, the freeness of His grace, the boundlessness of His love. His willingness and ability to save to the uttermost extent of wretchedness and 130 THE MIKISTBT OF HOME.

woe, — preaches the Gospel with a tongue of life! Sach a Christ-exalting minister is a ‘’savimr of life unto lifer Such is the glorious message we proclaim to you, my reader.

Aie you anxious about your soul? Are you sin-distressed, guilt-burdened? Do you ask, what you must do to be saved? My answer is based upon a free grace salvation, — Look unto Jesus, and be saved. Come to Christ just as you now are, with no price in your hand, with no self-preparation; meriting nothing, doing nothing; and accept a present and full pardon, a free and perfect justification, all provided for you in Christ You are to believe not in a doctrine, or in a creed, or in a dogma, or in a Church: but, you are to believe in the Lord Jesus, in a personal Saviour. Christ is the Object of faith, and Christ alone. And will He spurn you, will He reject you, will He cast you out? Oh never! He has given His word; and heaven and earth shall pass away, but thaJt word shall never fail, — “JKm thai corrveth unto Me, I taiU in no wise cast ovt’* Oh, into what perfect peace, into what holy joy, into what assured hope of gloiy will one act of simple, child-like faith in the Lord Jesxis in a moment bring your soul! Try it, my reader: it is your life.

There is life in the tongue of vme and timely counsel. It is a great power to be able, with the meekness of wisdom, to advise in the time of perplexity and doubt; to speak words which shall be as light upon the dreaiy path of some tried and perplexed chUd of Qod, anxious to know and do His wUl, yet needing the wise and gentle guidance of an experienced, Gkxl-fearing friend. If the Lord has conferred upon you this power, use it; and life to some drooping heart, some embarrassed mind will flow in a sacred stream from your words. ‘’A word spoken m season, how good is

ur

There is life in the tongue of kindness, sympathy, and love. To this many a sad and sorrowing heart, and many a deep, bleeding wound, which words of human sympathy have comforted and healed, will testify. “The law of kindness upon the tongue” is a law of life to the heart whose joys sorrow has withered, and whose hope death has slain. Oh, who can describe the exchange of the shroud of woe for the robe of gladness, the garment of praise for the spirit of heayiness which one word of kindness creates? This power is ours! Ours the angel mission of folding around a tempest-tossed soul the wings of love and sympathy. Be faithful to it: no hard tcusk this — nothing easier. Ourselves partaking of the “kindness and love of God; “soothed and comforted by the words and sympathy of Christ, we shall know how to speak a word in season to a wounded spirit.” Blessed be Grod, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father ot mercies, and the Gk)d of all comfort; who comforteth

US in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of GoA” Lord! we accept with cheerful submission the discipline of sorrow, however keen and crushing, which perfects us for a mission so noble, Christ-like, and Divine. If some child of sufifering, some son or daughter of grief, shall in future time reap soothing and joy firom this sowing in tears, we bow our head meekly to the cup Thy love has ordained, and from our heart would say, — “ThyVill be done!”

My dear reader, let this be the practical conclusion of the whole matter, — guard your speech, bridle your tongue, seek that grace may be poured into your lips; reflect that life and deaih are enthroned upon this member. Think how great a fire one spark may kindle I Ever remember before you speak, that you are in the presence of God: that Christ hears you, and that an angel stands by to record your words in a book, and that, “every idle word that men shall ypeak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment; for by thy words thou shalt he justified, and by thy wordi thou shalt he condemned*’ “Set a watch at the door of my lips, lest I speak vmadvisedly urith my tongue. Let the words of my month and the meditations of my heart he acceptable in Thy sight, Lord, my strength and my Bedeemer.** And let David’s holy, determined reso-THE POWER OF THE TONGUK 133

lution be onis: — ‘He thai workeOi deceit shall not dwell ipiihin my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sighiP And may the characters of those who shall abide in the Lord’s tabemade, and dwell in His holy hill, belong to us: —” He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeih evil to his neighbour, wot taketh up a reproach against his neighlxnir, hut in whose eye a vile person is contemnedr

Lord! pniify my lips with a living coal from off thine altar; and ever grant that my speech may be seasoned with the salt of thy grace, that it may administer instruction, edification, and comfort to those that hear!

“One angty moment often does what we rent for yesn. It weeks the wrong we ne’er make right by sorrow or by tears; It ^enks the mde imd unkind word, it wonnds the feeble breast. It strikes tke reckless sadden bkpw, it wonnds the household rest. The hand of Peace is frank and warm, and soft as ringdoye’s win And ke who quells an angry thont is greater than a king; Shame to the lips that eer seek to stir up jarring strife, When gentknesB iroald shed so much of Chiistian joy thron^ Kfei”