On Keeping Quiet

Talking is good if it be good talking. Very wonderful is the gift of speech, and the power of good words to do good is simply incalculable. But not all talking is good; there are words that are firebrands or daggers. We are responsible, too, for using our tongue. An old proverb tells us that, while speech is silvern, silence is golden. Of course the saying says too much. There are times when silence is not golden, is in fact only base alloy, and when duty can be done only by speaking. We have no right to keep our gentle thoughts and feelings in our heart unexpressed when loved ones are starving for words of affection. We dare not close our lips on an unspoken message from God, or a word of witnessing for God.

Nevertheless, it is ofttimes our duty to be silent. There are times wrhen silence is indeed golden, and when speech is only silvern, or even poor dross. It is a good thing to know when to speak and when not to speak. Some persons talk altogether too much. They chatter on forever. Nothing ever awes them into silence.

One tells of standing before a great picture — a picture representing one of the most tender and sacred scenes in the life of Christ. There was everything in the occasion to produce reverence, almost awe. The little group that stood before the picture with uncovered heads were deeply impressed, and spoke, if at all, only to give expression in whispered words to the emotion which possessed them. But in the midst of this worshipful hush there came in another group of visitors. The picture had no subduing effect upon them. They talked on in careless mood, speaking of the mere accessories of the great work of art, evidently without any perception of the real meaning of the painting, or of any of the scenes which it portrayed.

This was an occasion when speech was not only impertinent, trivial, and out of place, but was also irreverent, undevout, and when silence was the only fitting expression of the thoughtful heart.

We may learn much from our Master’s example about the duty of silence. No other man ever spoke as he did, such marvellous words, such words of power; but in the Gospel story the silences of Jesus are quite as wonderful as his words. There were thirty silent years at the beginning, out of which only one single sentence is preserved to us. The silence of those years is wonderfully impressive.

We urge young Christian people in these days to be always talking, telling their experiences, witnessing to their love for Christ; we insist that they shall let no meeting pass without “a little word for Jesus.” But Jesus himself, with a heart full of love for God and a mind teeming with holy thoughts which he was eager to express, waited thirty years in silence before he began to speak. Perhaps we talk too much about our religion. Perhaps it were better if we waited longer and mused in silence, while the fire burns, until we can speak more wisely and with more power. Then what we say would be something worth while.

There were times, too, when Jesus was silent in the presence of human need and distress. It seems strange to us, as we read the records, that he did not speak when words would have given such comfort and relief. But no doubt silence was better then than speech, or he would have spoken. There are times when kindly words would better be restrained, when even love may be too tender. There are times when we would do our friends harm if we were to lift away or even lighten their burden; because the blessing they need is in the burden, and to remove it would be to rob them of God’s gift in it.

Many people talk too much, too, when they find their friends in sorrow. They want to express sympathy; and they think they must go over all the details of the grief with them, and then must expound to them the comforts of the Bible. But there are few places where many words are more unfit than in the presence of grief. A warm pressure of the hand, a word or two of strong sympathy, and a quiet heart’s prayer to God for help, will give the truest comfort.

We get from our Master also the lesson of silence under injury or wrong. That is what meekness is — not answering back, not contending for one’s rights, not striving against injustice, not resisting insult, but quietly submitting and enduring. Over and over wre see Jesus bearing reproaches and injuries in sweet silence. He kept silent about Judas while the treason was ripening. He was silent on his trial, reviled but not reviling again. On his cross he spoke no word of bitterness or of complaint. While the nails were being driven into his hands g6 YOUNG PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS.

and feet his only word was a prayer for those who were causing him such anguish.

It is hard to keep quiet when others say bitter or false things to us, or when we are suffering wrongfully. But silence is always better than words in such experiences. If we speak at all, when smarting under a sense of personal injury, we are almost sure to say words we would better not have said. Anger is a kind of insanity. A furious man is a madman in two senses. We pity the dumb, but dumbness is safer and better than ungoverned speech which works havoc all about.

“I hastily opened my lips

And uttered a word of disdain That wounded a friend and forever estranged A heart I would die to regain.”

One of the sad things about ill-timed words is that they cannot be recalled. Rose Terry Cooke, in a little poem called, “Unreturning,” presents this truth in a very striking way. Flowers fade, but there will be more blossoms. Snow melts, but it will snow again. You may weep over the unkind thing you said which so stung your friend’s heart, and your friend may never speak of it to you, nor show in any way that he even remembers it, but the word itself never can be recalled. Then she continues: —

Never shall thy spoken word

Be again unsaid, unheard.

Well its work the utterance wrought,

Woe or weal — whate’er it brought;

Once for all the rune is read,
Once for all the judgment said.
Though it pierced, a poisoned spear,
Through the soul thou holdest dear;
Though it quiver, fierce and deep,
Through some stainless spirit’s sleep;
Idle, vain, the flying sting
That a passing rage might bring,
Speech shall give it fangs of steel,
Utterance all its barb reveal.

Give thy tears of blood and fire,
Pray with pangs of mad desire,
Offer life, and soul, and all,
That one sentence to recall;
Wrestle with its fatal wrath,
Chase with flying feet its path; — Once for all thy word is sped;
None evade it but the dead.
All thy travail will be vain-:
Spoken words come not again.

Surely it is “a time to keep silence” when we are under the pressure of any sense of wrong or injustice, for if we speak then our words will have a sting in them, and an hour later we shall be sure to regret that we spoke at all. The Bible has much to say about keeping quiet, but how may we learn the lesson? Tonguemastery is not easy. We are assured that even wild beasts are more easily tamed than the human tongue. Yet the tongue is not utterly untamable. The lesson of keeping silence can be learned; and we should never be content until we have learned to be quiet, not speaking, even under the keenest provocation. How can we learn the lesson? Self-discipline is important. We must watch ourselves. We must get the mastery over our own life. We must bring our tongue into subjection, so that it will speak or be silent as we bid it.

But we need divine help. Christ overcame the world, and he is able to overcome every power of evil. There is a secret of Christian faith by which we may put our whole life into Christ’s keeping. If we would only wait for him to speak in our words, we should often be silent wrhere now we chatter endlessly.

There is a picture of Augustine and his mother looking up toward heaven in reverent awe. “Oh, that God would speak to us!” he is saying. “Perhaps he is,” the mother replies.

If we keep quiet and still, he will speak to us at the right time. Then, unless his voice of gentle stillness speak in us, we would better be silent. Divinely inspired silences are better far than any human words we could speak.