SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 July 1921, Page 11

SUNDAY READING.

WORDS A TEST OF CHARACTER.

“And I say unto you that every idle word that men speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.”—'Saint Matt., XII. 36.

(By Rev. A. H. Collins, New Plymouth.) I suppose we never read, these words I or hear them read without a feelihg of . vague uncertainty as to their exact i meaning, surprise at the severity of the sentence pronounced against an offence eo apparently trivial. Our sense of proportion is outraged. We find it hard to believe that the Great Day of Resize will be concerned with mere words, often forgotten as soon as they are spoken. How improbable it seems that light and airy nothings such as words will count! Befote that August Tribunal, will it not be the solemn facts of life, the notable merits and demerits, than will tutn the scales of judgment, and not idle words? The villain and the saint, will they hot stand or fall on grounds far greater in moment than light and chaffy speech? This, I say, is how we are inclined to reason, after reading this passage or hearing it read. But scan these words a little more closely, and I think we shall revise our first impression. It is a law of physics that action and reaction are equal and in opposite directions. The boy with his bouncing ball illustrates this. It is also a law of ethics that there is no action, however trivial, that has not its reaction on human character, and I think in the light of that fact, I can show you this text is no figure of speech, but the sober enunciation of a Divine law which renders us accountable for the seemingly trivial offence of idle words, and that when a. man is judged by his words, he is judged by his character, for speech is character in action. First let Us make sure that we under stand the nature of the offence which is said to determine judgment. “Against the grosser sins of the tongue,” says Dr. Dale, “it is hardly necessary to warn Christian people. They are not likely to be guilty of blasphemy, or of cruel and malignant lying. Abstinence from the Worst, and most aggravated, sins of speech is for most men a very easy virtue, and can give us no claim to appropriate the remarkable saying of Saint James: “If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.” But some of the lighter offences of the tongue, as they ate the most common, are also the most mischievous in their consequences. Jesus Christ not only condemns the use of language that is distinctly harmful and uncharitable. He condemns all useless, fruitless, silly talk-, all talk for talking Sake; all speech which, being aimed at nothing, hits it; ail careless misuse of the great trust of language. Not only Jesus Christ, but any selfrespeeting person, condemns the vast torrent of vapid and venemous speech that is known as “society gossip,” in which the most private and sacred concerns of life are laid bare and discussed with morbid curiosity and cruel delight. Under the same lash must fall many of the clever and spicy paragraphs of modern journalism of the baser sort. Let any man. cast his eye down the columns of certain public prints, some of them called “religious,” and he will be shocked to-find how frequently. and how flagrantly, they sin against “the morality of language*'’ He will And the character of those he most deeply reverenced, whose motives he believes to be pure, and of whose integritv he has no reason to suspect, held up to scorn and hatred and derision. The organ of one party not only opposes the organ of the opposite party, but examines with microscopic care the real or the imaginary faults of the other No personalities are too mean, no insinuation too audacious, no charge too daring. I say, in all seriousness, the spirit that inspires these paragraphs, and prevents the controversialists from seeing what is true ami right in an opponent, the spirit that attributes low motives to account for excellent lives, and teaches .men to suspect, and shun, and hate, those who differ from them in opinion and belief is un-Ohristiaa and antiChristian; and when I think of the pa ; n and loss inflicted, I cease to wonder that our earthly probation should turn on the use and misuse of words.

In saying this I shall probably carry your judgment, but our text goes further. You would reprobate the itse of blasphemous and obscene words; you would condemn the resort to scandal and lying; but do you realise that language is a trust, one of the greatest trusts given to us. For clearness, lucidity, eug gestiveness, and music, our English language ranks easily, first among the languages of the world. Yet, although it is so beautiful, it is the most ill-used of any, and we are amongst the worst offenders. There is a carelessness and shoddiness in our use of language which, is ominous. The speech of Englishmen is conquering the world, and it is designed to become the great “lingua franca,” and we should keep it sweet and pure. But how seldom do we hear pure, crisp, nervous English! Pure in syntax, and pure in pronunciation, and in enunciation. We reprobate a inan who fouls a stream, or circulates spurious coins, and we need the same feeling with regard to the morality of Words. As I write there lies before me. a- list of 70 slang words and phrases, some of t'hem simply inane, many of them coarse, and all of them vulgar; yet they are in constant use amongst us, and some of the most serious offenders are those entrusted with the teaching of our youth. I do not wish to imply that New Zealanders are sinners above all others in this respect. There are pro-1 vincialisms in England, ahd something ■ worse than provincialisms in America. But there is a carelessness and a slanginess amongst us which is inexcusable in cultivated people. If I were the Minister of Education in New Zealand I would insist on pure English being taught in our public schools. W T e sometimes compare words | and deeds. But for many of us our! words form a large part of our deeds, ■ and the right use of words is as essential I to the proper performance of our work as the quality of color is to the artist, and the purity of tone is to the'musician. . wr iting, in speaking, in teaching, influence depends on the right use; of words, as in music, harmony de- j pends on the note struck, and the care- I less use of speech renders a man incap- 1 able of doing his best work in the best j way, as colour blindness is fatal to a ‘ painter.

A French author, deploring the harm done by sins of the tongue, said the evil would only be remedied when higher education had taught us the deep immorality of sinning against language. He was right up to a certain point. Education will no doubt do much, for the test of a cultivated person is selfdiscipline in the matter of words. The obstinate and inveterate talker is usually shallow and ignoriint; souls are rare who, when they have nothing to

say, have the grace to be Silent. But the evil lies deeper than the schoolmaster can reach. Words are moralities. Speech indicates inner life as the barometer registers air pressure. Idle words count, because they are symptomatic of the heart’s condition. Speech is character in expression, and When a man is judged by hia words he is judged by his character.

Our Holy Judge ie able to read life by language. Mark this, however, words not only express our inner life; they help to fashion it. Words shape as well as show character. You see a group of gossiperg at a loafers’ corner, and their talk not only tells what they are, it helps to make them what they are. The flippant word utters and forms the mind; the mind influences the heart; the heart influences the character, and character determines the destiny. Men are made by what they say. Conversation educates. To communicate an idea, to repeat a fact, to tell a story is to fix it in the speaker’s mind. The spoken word is like a nail that fastens a shingle on the roof, and helps to complete the building. The thoughts to which we give hospito ’ ity, and the words we use to express these thoughts, mould conduct and fix destiny, as surely a® the oyster shell is formed of the juices of the bivalve. So that when a man is judged by his words, he is not in the position of one who is dragged to court on some utterly trivial charge, and sentence passed out of all proportion to the offence.

“Out of thine own mouth will I condemn thee,” said Jesus Christ, and for this reason, that the tongue shows the state of the system, and until there is a clean tongue, there cannot be a clean soul. The idle word proclaims the evil heart, and the fatal thing is this, that it reproduces itself in other lives. A word a trifle! So is the spark that lays waste the city; so is the venom on the leaf of a nettle, yet it inflames the bkfod; so is the yellow speck on the tongue, but it means typhoid, and perhaps death! Is it, then, any wonder that “the True and Faithful Witness” eaid: “By thy words thou • shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” But if we need to revise our ideas as to the morality of words, We also need to correct our notions of judgment. We have made the Great Day of Assize too distant, and the penalties too materialistic. People are not influenced by the appeal to fear, as they once were. l>oes that mean the decay of conviction concerning law and penalty? I am afraid it does. A boy came home from school, and said to his mother: “Mother, teacher says there is no lake of fire and brimstone to put liars in, and I don’t think there is. What’s the need of a fellow being so careful to tell the truth?” That lad’s position is typical of a good many, who think that if there is no lake of fire and brimstone, there is no reason why they should not be scamps. If they think so, scamps they are already. For “virtue founded on fear is only vice in a fit of dejection.” Nevertheless, there is a truth at the back of the hell of Virgil and Dante and Milton. This is a moral universe, what you like. Retribution is a Aw, and a just law, too. The Judge is at the door. There is no need of searing pictures of infernal dungeons and fiendish tormentors. The present, actual, harm of the misuse of language lies in its effect on character; it coarsens and vulgarises the mind and the heart, and far worse than material fires is the state of soul that renders us incapable of seeing and feeling the presence of God. But I repeat the judgment is not far off in the future; it is now, and here; it has come and is always coming, and will one day come in its finality. If a man drinks brandy or laudanum everyday, the stimulant or the narcotic does not lie dormant in his system. There is no waiting till a distant day, when, ail at once, the accumulated effects appear in drunken frenzy or helpless coma. The evil is working now. In the same way, we cannot conceive of moral or immoral acts of any kind slumbering and taking no effect until some future Day of Judgment. Eternal life and eternal death are with us now. in leaf and bud, if not in flower and fruit, and the present is the future in the making. Words reveal and make character, and character determines destiny, now and then, here and yonder.

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.”