180
Education
the children, and the youth as well, learn what God says about these
things:
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”
Proverbs 18:21
.
In Scripture, backbiters are classed with “haters of God,” with
“inventors of evil things,” with those who are “without natural affec-
tion, implacable, unmerciful,” “full of envy, murder, debate, deceit,
[236]
malignity.” It is “the judgment of God, that they which commit such
things are worthy of death.”
Romans 1:30, 31, 29, 32
. He whom God
accounts a citizen of Zion is he that “speaketh the truth in his heart;”
“that backbiteth not with his tongue,” “nor taketh up a reproach against
his neighbor.”
Psalm 15:2, 3
.
God’s word condemns also the use of those meaningless phrases
and expletives that border on profanity. It condemns the deceptive
compliments, the evasions of truth, the exaggerations, the misrepresen-
tations in trade, that are current in society and in the business world.
“Let your speech be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: and whatsoever is more than
these is of the evil one.”
Matthew 5:37
, R.V.
“As a madman who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is
the man that deceiveth his neighbor, and saith, Am not I in sport?”
Proverbs 26:18, 19
.
Closely allied to gossip is the covert insinuation, the sly innuendo,
by which the unclean in heart seek to insinuate the evil they dare not
openly express. Every approach to these practices the youth should be
taught to shun as they would shun the leprosy.
In the use of language there is perhaps no error that old and young
are more ready to pass over lightly in themselves than hasty, impatient
speech. They think it a sufficient excuse to plead, “I was off my guard,
and did not really mean what I said.” But God’s word does not treat it
lightly. The Scripture says:
“Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? there is more hope of
a fool than of him.”
Proverbs 29:20
.
“He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken
down, and without walls.”
Proverbs 25:28
.
In one moment, by the hasty, passionate, careless tongue, may be
[237]
wrought evil that a whole lifetime’s repentance cannot undo. Oh, the
hearts that are broken, the friends estranged, the lives wrecked, by the
harsh, hasty words of those who might have brought help and healing!