VII.

THE SELF-DISPARAGER.

"The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art, Reigns, more or less, and glows in every heart; The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure, The modest shun it, but to make it sure." YOUNG.

This is a talker not unfrequently met with. He speaks in disparaging terms of himself and his doings, not so much because he means you to understand him as he speaks, as that he either feigns humility or desires you to look more favourably upon him than you do, and say to him, "O dear no, you are quite wrong in your judgment. I see very differently; and think, Mr. Baker, that you injure yourself and your performances by talking as you do."

If you speak in words of honest praise of some good feature of his character, or of something he has done or possesses, he says in effect, "I wish it was even as you say; but you are mistaken. I have no such trait as you refer to, and what I have done is far from deserving the eulogium you have passed upon it. I am a very poor creature, and have no such goodness as you attribute to me, and am not capable of doing any such good work as you say I have done."

* * * * *

Miss Slater was a young lady generally acknowledged to possess good taste and refined judgment. She was also considered to be honest in spirit and candid in her expression of opinion. What she said she meant, whether in praise or in censure; and no one could say she was a flatterer or a cynic.

On a certain occasion, in conversation with Miss Button, she observed to her, "I was much pleased with that landscape painting which I saw in your parlour the last time I was at your house. Your mother said that it was one you did while at Manor House School."

"Yes, Miss Slater," she replied, "it was done by me; but it is a very inferior piece; not half so good as it might have been."

"I think it is very good indeed: so true to nature. The trees, the clouds, the birds, the river, and in fact the whole of it commends itself to my approval. It does you great credit and contains very good promise for the future, if you continue in the exercise of painting."

"You are, indeed, quite mistaken in your judgment, Miss Slater. It is really not up to most of my other paintings. I am ashamed of it, and have often said it is not worthy the beautiful frame which father had made for it."

Now, if Miss Slater had expressed herself in censure upon any particular part, Miss Button would probably have shown signs of uneasiness, if not displeasure.

Under this class of talkers may be mentioned those professors of religion who affect failings which they know they have not, and who acknowledge sins of which they know they are not guilty, for the sake of being reckoned among those who make a merit of "voluntary humility." They are among the "most unworthy of God's saints." They are the "vilest of the vile," "not fit to have a name or a place among Christ's people;" "their righteousness is filthy rags;" they are the "chief of sinners."

Now, there is little doubt that these words are perfectly true; only, the question is, whether they themselves really believe them to be so. It often occurs that these "great sinners," these "vilest of the vile," while forward to say such things of themselves, are the last to admit them as true when said of them by others.

This reminds one of an instance in which a member of a Church was giving way to this kind of self-disparagement, when a fellow member responding to him said, "True, my brother, you are among the greatest of sinners;" when he instantly warmed up in self-defence, and replied, "I am no greater sinner than you are; look at home before you accuse other people."

It also reminds one of the old story of the monk who heard the confession of a certain cardinal. "I am the chief of sinners," said the cardinal. "It is true," said the monk. "I have been guilty of every kind of sin," sighed the cardinal. "It is a solemn fact, my son," said the monk. "I have indulged in pride, in ambition, malice, and revenge," continued his Eminence. The provoking confessor assented without one pitying word of doubt or protest. "Why you fool," at last said the exasperated cardinal, "you don't imagine I mean all this to the letter?" "Ho, ho!" said the monk, "so you have been a liar too have you?"

Now, in all such cases as the above, it is not difficult to perceive the want of sincerity; and to talk in that way is anything but wise and consistent. While, on the one hand, it is unseemly to praise ourselves, it is, on the other, equally uncalled for to disparage ourselves. There is a proper place in which a man should stand in respect to himself as in respect to others. Towards himself let there be a dignified modesty, and towards others a respectful acknowledgment of any sincere commendation which may be given of his character and of his works. In all our personal confessions, either before men or God, let us endeavour to mean what we say and not act the hypocrite, that we may obtain the eulogium from others or from ourselves, what "humble and self-renouncing Christians we are."

Under this class of talkers there is another character which we wish to illustrate, viz., the household-wife, whose "house is never clean, and whose food is never such as is fit to place before you."

In a certain part of England, long celebrated for being a stronghold of Methodism, there is a small village, very beautiful for situation, and well known among the lovers of rural retreats. In this said village there lived a farmer and his wife, without children, who belonged to the Methodist Church. Squire Hopkins, which we shall call him, was a man of some note in the village, for his intelligence, influence, and character. Even the parson had a good word to say of him, and was not above holding a brief conversation with him, when he met him in the lane on the left side of the church. The Squire was a man who never was ashamed of his name as a Methodist, whether in the presence of the poor, the rich, or the clergyman. He had stood for many years a member, trustee, and steward in the Methodist Church. With all these honours, and the good-will of almost the entire village, the Squire was an unassuming and quiet man. His religion to him was more than all Church honours and worldly good opinions. His house was the home of the "travelling preachers," when, in their appointments, they came to the village to preach. And a right sort of a home it was too, clean, airy, pleasant, and possessing all things requisite to convenience and comfort. There was, however, one drawback in the happiness of this home. Excellent Sister Hopkins was afflicted with one failing, which could not be hid from those who visited her house. The weakness to which we allude was on the one side of it, the love of praise; and on the other side, the disparaging of herself and her doings. This she did that she might obtain the other. She disparaged, that you might praise. We do not say she did not deserve praise, but that her way of seeking it was neither wise nor commendable.

Sister Hopkins had so habituated herself to this way of speaking, that it was difficult for her to avoid it. As a housewife she was unexceptionable. She was careful to have everything in the most cleanly and orderly condition. She was an excellent cook, and the Squire an excellent provider, so that their table was always well spread, whenever good cheer was required. And yet you could not enter the house without being reminded that her "husband had company yesterday, and she could not keep the rooms half so decent as she would like;" and when you sat down to her table, covered with the best provisions, prepared in the best style of the cookery art, she was sorry that she "had so little, and so badly cooked." She had been doing this or that, busy here or there, that she "really had not such things as she would have liked to have had, and you must excuse it this time." It did not signify how bountiful or well-prepared the meal was, there was always sure to be something wanting which would be a text for a short sermon on self-disparagement.

On one occasion a minister was at breakfast when the table was well stocked with everything which could be desired—coffee of the finest flavour, tea of the richest kind, cream and butter fresh from the dairy, chickens swimming in gravy, with various kinds of preserves, and other things of a spicy and confectionery sort. No sooner had her guest begun to partake of her hospitality than Mrs. Hopkins commenced. She was afraid the coffee was not so good as it might have been, the cream and butter were not so fresh as she should have liked them, the chickens were hardly roasted enough, and as for the preserves, they had been boiled too much, through the carelessness of Mary, the servant. She meant to have had something better for breakfast, but had been disappointed; and it was too bad that there was nothing nice for him to eat.

All this was very heavy for her guest to bear. He simply remarked that "there was no need for apologies; everything was very good, and there was plenty of it."

We will now introduce another person to the reader in connection with Mrs. Hopkins. It is Superintendent Robson, who had just come on the circuit. He was a good man, plain, homely, practical. Like Mr. Wesley, he no more dare preach a fine sermon than wear a fine coat. Such was the action of his religion upon his conscience. He was well known for his common-sense way of teaching the truths of the Bible. He would speak just as he thought and as he felt, although he might offend Miss Precision and Mr. Itchingear. He gained the name of being an eccentric preacher, as most preachers do who never prevaricate and always speak as they think. The failing of Sister Hopkins had reached the ears of Superintendent Robson. He had no patience with such a failing, and he was resolved to cure her. On his first visit to the village to preach, he stopped, according to custom, at Squire Hopkins's. Thomas, the ostler, took the preacher's horse, and the preacher entered the house. He was shown into the best room, and from all appearances felt quite at home. Everything was in perfect order and cleanliness, fit for the reception of a prince. The preacher had not been seated long, scarcely long enough to pass the usual interchange of first salutations and enquiries, when Mrs. Hopkins began in her old style to say she was "sorry that things were so untidy; her house was upside down; she was mortified to be found in such a plight; she really hoped before his arrival to have had all things in such order as she always liked to see them. She hoped he would excuse their being so." Superintendent Robson looked around and about the room in all directions, to find out the terrible confusion to which his hostess alluded; but he said not a word. Shortly after the dinner was announced as ready; and as this was the first visit of the preacher, particular attention had been given to have a table spread with more than usual good things. The preacher, however, found from the Squire's wife that there was hardly anything for dinner, and what there was she was ashamed for him to sit down to. The Superintendent heard her in mute astonishment. He lifted his dark eyes, and looking her in the face with penetration and austerity, he rose gently from the table and said,—

"Brother Hopkins, I want my horse immediately; I must leave this house."

"Why, Brother Robson, what is the matter?"

"Enough the matter! Why, sir, your house isn't fit to stay in, and you haven't anything fit to eat or drink, and I won't stay."

The preacher mounted his horse and took his departure.

Both the Squire and his lady were confounded at such unexpected conduct. They stood in their room as though thunderstruck, not knowing what to say or what to do. But the preacher was gone, and could not be re-called.

After a few moments poor Sister Hopkins wept like a child. "Dear me," said she to the Squire, "this is a terrible thing. It will be all over the village, and everybody will be laughing at me. How shall I meet the Superintendent again? I did not mean anything by what I said; it is only my way. I never thought it wrong. Had I known our new minister didn't like such a way of talk I would not have talked so. Oh, how vexed I am!"

The result of this was that Mrs. Hopkins saw herself as others saw her. She ceased making these empty and meaningless apologies, and became a wiser and better woman. The next time Superintendent Robson went to the Squire's he found a "house fit for him to stay in and things fit for him to eat."



VIII.

THE COMMON SWEARER.

"Take not His name, who made thy tongue, in vain, It gets thee nothing, and hath no excuse." HERBERT.

He is a transgressor of the third commandment of the Decalogue, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." He transgresses without any laudable purpose, and without any necessity. He is thoughtless, foolish, and void of the fear of God. "His mouth," as an old divine says, "is black with oaths, and the very soot of hell hangs about his lips." He degrades the most excellent things into the meanest associations. Sometimes he indulges to such an extent in his sin, that the main substance of his speech is swearing. It is more than an adjunct or concomitant of his conversation; it is the body and soul of it. Sometimes you may hear him, with an air of self-complacency, give utterance to his profanity, as though he regarded it an ornament of rhetoric, giving spice and condiment to his thoughts. There are occasions when he considers his talk only reliable in its truthfulness as this evil accompanies it. He would not be a man in his own judgment if he did not swear. He thinks he magnifies his own importance in the estimation of other people; but, alas! he promotes his own shame and disgrace before the eyes of the wise and good.

The common swearer is confined to no rank or age in society. I have heard the youth who was barely in his teens indulge in this sin, as though it had been a part of his parental or day-school education. I have heard the young gentleman, so-called, recently returned from the walks of a University, pollute his lips and character with this shameful vice. I have heard the man who laid claim to wealth, to intelligence, to respectability, and to honour, pour forth his swearing words. I have heard the man who has stood in official relation to the state, and who considered himself a "justice of the peace," break the holy commandment with impunity. I have even heard one, called by the misnomer, "lady," do disgrace to her sex by this sinful fault in conversation. In the household, with a group of little ones whose minds were just unfolding to receive first impressions, I have heard the parents swear as though they were licensed to do so by reason. In company, where common civility ought to have restrained, I have heard the utterances of the swearer's horrid voice. In the street, where public decency ought to have deterred, I have again and again heard the revolting expressions of this talker's leprous tongue. In the shop, while transacting business, I have heard him give vent to his blasphemies, when a kind reproof has only seemed for the time to enrage his demoniacal spirit to more fiery ebullitions. How humiliating is this sin to human nature! How it severs from everything that is holy and honourable! How it insults and blasphemes the glorious Lord of earth and heaven! How closely it allies to "the prince of the power of the air"!

"It might puzzle a philosopher," says Ogden, "to trace the love of swearing to its original principle, and assign its place in the constitution of man.

"Is it a passion, or an appetite, or an instinct? What is its just measure, its proper object, its ultimate end?

"Or shall we conclude that it is entirely the work of art? a vice which men have invented for themselves without prospect of pleasure or profit, and to which there is no imaginable temptation in nature?

"If it be an accomplishment, it is such an one as the meanest person may make himself master of; requiring neither rank nor fortune, neither genius nor learning.

"But if it be no test of wit, we must allow, perhaps, that it wears the appearance of valour. Alas! what is the appearance of anything? The little birds perch upon the image of an eagle.

"True bravery is sedate and inoffensive: if it refuse to submit to insults, it offers none; begins no disputes, enters into no needless quarrels; is above the little, troublesome ambition to be distinguished every moment; it hears in silence, and replies with modesty; fearing no enemy, and making none; and is as much ashamed of insolence as cowardice."

The swearer may ask, "Where is the evil of an oath when it is used for the support of truth?" If your character is good, the person with whom you converse will require no oath. He will depend upon the simple and bare declaration of the matter: and if you swear, it will take a per-centage from your character in his estimation, and he will not believe the statement any the sooner for the oath connected with it. Can you think that the high and holy name of God is intended to be debased by association with every trivial and impertinent truth which may be uttered? "No oath," says Bishop Hopkins, "is in itself simply good, and voluntarily to be used; but only as medicines are, in case of necessity. But to use it ordinarily and indifferently, without being constrained by any cogent necessity, or called to it by any lawful authority, is such a sin as wears off all reverence and dread of the Great God: and we have very great cause to suspect that where His name is so much upon the tongue, there His fear is but little in the heart."

Again, the same author says, "Though thou swearest that which is true; yet customary swearing to truths will insensibly bring thee to swear falsehoods. For, when once thou art habituated to it, an oath will be more ready to thee than a truth; and so when thou rashly boltest out somewhat that is either doubtful or false, thou wilt seal it up and confirm it with an oath, before thou hast had time to consider what thou hast said or what thou art swearing: for those who accustom themselves to this vice lose the observation of it in the frequency; and, if you reprove them for swearing, they will be ready to swear again, that they did not swear. And therefore it is well observed of St. Austin, 'We ought to forbear swearing that which is truth; for, by the custom of swearing, men oftentimes fall into perjury, and are always in danger of it.'"

Take a few considerations, with a view to show the evil of swearing, and to deter from the practice of it.

1. Consider that Name by which the Swearer generally commits his sin. "The name of God," says Jeremy Taylor, "is so sacred, so mighty, that it rends mountains, it opens the bowels of the deepest rocks, it casts out devils, and makes hell to tremble, and fills all the regions of heaven with joy; the name of God is our strength and confidence, the object of our worshippings, and the security of all our hopes; and when God hath given Himself a name, and immured it with dread and reverence, like the garden of Eden with the swords of cherubim, and none durst speak it but he whose lips were hallowed, and that at holy and solemn times, in a most holy and solemn place; I mean the high priest of the Jews at the solemnities when he entered into the sanctuary,—then He taught all the world the majesty and veneration of His name; and therefore it was that God made restraints upon our conceptions and expressions of Him; and, as He was infinitely curious, that, from all appearances He made to them, they should not depict or engrave any image of Him; so He took care that even the tongue should be restrained, and not be too free in forming images and representments of His name; and therefore as God drew their eyes from vanity, by putting His name amongst them, and representing no shape; so even when He had put His name amongst them, He took it off from the tongue, and placed it before the eye; for Jehovah was so written on the priest's mitre, that all might see and read, but none speak it but the priest. But besides all this, there is one great thing concerning the name of God, beyond all that can be spoken or imagined else; and that is, that when God the Father was pleased to pour forth all His glories, and imprint them upon His Holy Son, in His exaltation, it was by giving Him His holy name, the Tetragrammaton, or Jehovah made articulate, to signify 'God manifested in the flesh;' and so He wore the character of God, and became the bright image of His person.

"Now all these great things concerning the name of God are infinite reproofs of common and vain swearing by it. God's name is left us here to pray by, to hope in, to be the instrument and conveyance of our worshippings, to be the witness of truth and the judge of secrets, the end of strife and the avenger of perjury, the discerner of right and the severe exactor of all wrongs; and shall all this be unhallowed by impudent talking of God without sense or fear, or notice, or reverence, or observation?"

2. The uselessness of swearing. "Surely," says Dr. Barrow, "of all dealers in sin the swearer is palpably the silliest, and maketh the worst bargains for himself; for he sinneth gratis, and, like those in the prophet, selleth his soul for nothing. An epicure hath some reason to allege; an extortioner is a man of wisdom, and acteth prudently in comparison to him; for they enjoy some pleasure, or acquire some gain here, in lieu of their salvation hereafter: but this fondling offendeth heaven, and abandoneth happiness, he knoweth not why or for what. He hath not so much as the common plea of human infirmity to excuse him; he can hardly say he was tempted thereto by any bait."

The following incident will illustrate the senselessness of swearing as frequently practised:—

Three travellers in a coach endeavoured to shorten the tedious hours by relating stories. One of them, an officer, who had seen much of the world, spoke of his past dangers, and former comrades, in so interesting a manner, that his companions would have been charmed with his recitals had he not interspersed them with continual oaths and imprecations. When he had finished his tale, an elderly gentleman, who had not yet spoken, was asked for a story. Without hesitation he thus commenced his narration:—

"Gentlemen, it is now nearly twenty years since I was travelling on this road, on a very dark night, when—a thousand trumpets, pipes, and strings!—an accident occurred,—trumpets, pipes, and strings!—of which I cannot even now think without shuddering. I truly believe—trumpets, pipes, and strings!—that it happened on the very spot which we are now passing. The coach was going on at the usual speed of—trumpets, pipes, and strings!—when we were suddenly alarmed by the noise of horses galloping after us.—Trumpets, pipes, and strings!—We distinctly heard voices crying, 'Stop! stop!'—trumpets, pipes, and strings!—said I to my companions, 'We are pursued by robbers!'—trumpets, pipes, and strings!—'It is not possible,' cried the other travellers.—Pipes and strings!—'Oh, yes,' said I, 'it is but too true,' and on looking out of the window, I saw that those—trumpets, pipes, and strings!—horsemen had overtaken us. Just as the carriage—trumpets, pipes, and——"

Here the officer's impatience could no longer be restrained. "I hope you will excuse my interrupting you, sir," said he, "but for the life of me I cannot see what your trumpets, pipes, and strings have to do with your story."

"Sir," replied the old man, "you astonish me. Have you not perceived that these words are quite as necessary to my tale as the oaths and imprecations with which you seasoned yours? Allow me to offer you a few words of counsel: you are yet young, you can yet correct this sad habit, which shows lightness of character and disrespect for God's sacred name and presence."

There was a moment's silence, the officer then took the old gentleman's hand, and pressing it with emotion, said,—

"Sir, I thank you for the kind lesson you have taught me; I hope it will not be in vain."

3. The incivility of swearing. "Some vain persons," says Dr. Barrow again, "take it for a genteel and graceful thing, a special accomplishment, a mark of fine breeding, a point of high gallantry; for who, forsooth, is the brave spark, the complete gentleman, the man of conversation and address, but he that hath the skill and confidence (O heavens! how mean a skill! how mad a confidence!) to lard every sentence with an oath or curse; making bold at every turn to salute his Maker, or to summon Him in attestation of his tattle; not to say calling and challenging the Almighty to damn and destroy him? Such a conceit, I say, too many have of swearing, because a custom thereof, together with divers other fond and base qualities, hath prevailed among some people bearing the name and garb of gentlemen.

"But in truth there is no practice more crossing the genuine nature of genteelness, or misbecoming persons well-born and well-bred; who should excel the rude vulgar in goodness, in courtesy, in nobleness of heart, in unwillingness to offend, and readiness to oblige those with whom they converse, in steady composedness of mind and manners, in disdaining to say or do any unworthy, any unhandsome thing.

"For this practice is not only a gross rudeness towards the main body of men, who justly reverence the name of God, and detest such an abuse thereof; not only, further, an insolent defiance of the common profession, the religion, the law of our country, which disalloweth and condemneth it; but it is very odious and offensive to any particular society or company, at least wherein there is any sober person, any who retaineth a sense of goodness, or is anywise concerned for God's honour; for to any such person no language can be more disgustful. Nothing can more grate his ears, or fret his heart, than to hear the sovereign object of his love and esteem so mocked and slighted; to see the law of his Prince so disloyally infringed, so contemptuously trampled on; to find his best Friend and Benefactor so outrageously abused. To give him the lie were a compliment, to spit in his face were an obligation, in comparison to this usage.

"Wherefore it is a wonder that any person of rank, any that hath in him a spark of ingenuity, or doth at all pretend to good manners, should find in his heart, or deign to comply with so scurvy a fashion; a fashion much more befitting the scum of the people than the flower of the gentry; yea, rather much below any man endued with a scrap of reason, or a grain of goodness. Would we bethink ourselves, modest, sober, and pertinent discourse would appear far more generous and masculine than such mad hectoring the Almighty, such boisterous insulting over the received laws and general notions of mankind, such ruffianly swaggering against sobriety and goodness. If gentlemen would regard the virtues of their ancestors, the founders of their quality; that gallant courage, that solid wisdom, that noble courtesy which advanced their families, and severed them from the vulgar; this degenerate wantonness and sordidness of language would return to the dunghill, or rather, which God grant, be quite banished from the world."

4. The positive scriptural commands against swearing. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain." "Ye shall not swear by any name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord." The Christian Lawgiver thus utters His voice, "Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: but I say unto you, Swear not at all: neither by heaven, for it is God's throne: nor by the earth, for it is His footstool: neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black." St. James thus utters the inspiration of the Spirit: "But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay: lest ye fall into condemnation."

It is the duty of all who reverence the name of God, and desire not sin upon their brother, to stand up in firm fidelity, to reprove and correct this evil as it may come before them. The following instances illustrate how this may be done.

"My lads," said a shrewd captain, when reading his orders to the crew on the quarter-deck, to take command of the ship, "there is a favour which I ask of you, and which, as a British officer, I expect will be granted by a crew of British seamen; what say you lads, are you willing to grant your new captain, who promises to treat you well, one favour?"

"Hi, hi, sir," cried all hands, "please to let's know what it is, sir," said a rough-looking, hoarse-voiced boatswain.

"Why, my lads," said the captain, "it is this: that you must allow ME to swear the first oath in this ship; this is a law which I cannot dispense with; I must insist upon it, I cannot be denied. No man on board must swear an oath before I do; I want to have the privilege of swearing the first oath on board H.M.S. C——. What say you, my lads, will you grant me this favour?"

The appeal seemed so reasonable, and the manner of the captain so kind and so prepossessing, that a general burst from the ship's company announced, "Hi, hi, sir," with their accustomed three cheers, when they left the quarter-deck. The effect was good, swearing was wholly abolished in the ship.

When the Rev. Rowland Hill was returning from Ireland, he found himself much annoyed by the reprobate conduct of the captain and mate, who were sadly given to the scandalous habit of swearing. First the captain swore at the mate, then the mate swore at the captain; then they both swore at the winds. Mr. Hill called to them for "fair play."

"Stop, stop," said he; "let us have fair play, gentlemen; it is my turn now."

"At what is it your turn?" asked the captain.

"At swearing," replied Mr. Hill.

Well, they waited and waited, until their patience was exhausted, and they wished Mr. Hill to make haste and take his turn. He told them, however, that he had a right to take his own time, and swear at his own convenience.

The captain replied with a laugh, "Perhaps you don't mean to take your turn!"

"Pardon me, captain," answered Mr. Hill, "I shall do so as soon as I can find the good of doing it."

Mr. Hill did not hear another oath on the voyage.

John Wesley was once travelling in a stage-coach with a young officer who was exceedingly profane, and who swore curses upon himself in almost every sentence. Mr. Wesley asked him if he had read the Common Prayer Book; for if he had, he might remember the collect beginning, "O God, Who art wont to give more than we are to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve." The young man had the good sense to make the application, and swear no more during the journey.

On another occasion Mr. Wesley was travelling, when he had as a fellow-passenger one who was intelligent and very agreeable in conversation, with the exception of occasional swearing. When they changed coaches at a certain place, Mr. Wesley took the gentleman aside, and after expressing the general pleasure he had had in his company, said he had one favour to ask of him. He at once replied, "I will take great pleasure in obliging you, for I am sure you will not make an unreasonable request." "Then," said Mr. Wesley, "as we have to travel together some distance, I beg, if I should so far forget myself as to swear, you will kindly reprove me." The gentleman immediately saw the reason and force of the request, and smiling, said, "None but Mr. Wesley could have conceived a reproof in such a manner."



IX.

THE AFFECTED.

"All affectation is vain and ridiculous; it is the attempt of poverty to appear rich."—LAVATER.

This is a talker with whom one sometimes meets in society. He is not generally very difficult to recognise. His physiognomy often indicates the class to which he belongs. He has sometimes a peculiar formation of mouth, which you may notice as the result of his affectation in speaking. His voice, too, is frequently indicative of his fault. It is pathetic, joyous, funereal, strong, weak, squeaking, not according to its own naturalness, but according to the affectation of his mind. And these variations are generally the opposite of what they ought to be. They neither harmonise with the subject spoken of, nor the person speaking.

Affectation is a fault which attaches itself to a certain class of "young ladies and gentlemen" who have spent a few months in a village academy or a city school, and wish to give to their friends and parents unmistakeable evidence of their success in the acquisition of learning. It also belongs to a limited class of young ladies who have advanced somewhere the other side of thirty, and begin to stand in fear of a slip. Their affectation, it is hoped, will be very winning upon the affections of a peculiar sort of young gentlemen who have gone so far in life that they are almost resolved to go all the way without any companion to accompany them. It is a fault, too, which often clings to another class of society,—that which, by a sudden elevation of fortune, are raised from the walks of poverty into the ranks of the wealthy. The elevation of their circumstances has not elevated their education, their intelligence, their good manners. Nevertheless, they affect an equality in these, and at the same time sadly betray the reality of their origin and training.

This affectation in talk as well as in other ways mostly develops itself in society which is supposed to be higher than the parties affected. The ignorant talker is affected in the company of the intelligent; the uneducated in the company of the educated; the poor in the company of the rich; the young lady in the company of the one who is superior to her, and into whose heart she wishes to distil a drop or two of Cupid's elixir.

Not only, however, among these is the affected talker to be found. He is sometimes met with in those who are supposed to have acquired such attainments in self-knowledge and education as to lift them above this objectionable habit. A clergyman of considerable popularity on a certain occasion was observed to give utterance to his thoughts thus, "The sufferings of the poo-ah increase with the approach of wint-ah; and the glaurious gos-pill is the only cu-ah of all the ills of suffering hoo-man-e-tee." On another occasion, the same accomplished minister was heard to address himself with much eloquence to the ungodly portion of his congregation: "O sin-nah, the judgment is ne-ah; life is but a va-pah. He that hath ears to ye-ah, let him ye-ah."

A person of respectable position and intelligence, addicted to this way of speaking, in giving account of a visit he had recently made to a man in dying circumstances, said, "When I arrove at the house of my deseased friend, he was perspiring his last. I stood by his bedside, and said, as he was too far gone to speak, 'Brother, if you feel happy now, jist squeze my hand;' and he squoze it."

But wherever and in whomsoever this fault is discernible, it is a creature of ignorance and weakness. It is repulsive. It is simply detestible; in some, more than in others. There is no fault so easily discovered, and there is none so quickly denounced. The affected talker is one of the most disagreeable talkers. If there is no moral defect in him, yet there is want of good taste, want of propriety, want of respect to the taste of others, violence offered to his own natural gifts and acquired abilities. There is a degree of deception and imposture in the action, if not in the motive and the result: an effort to produce an impression contrary to the honest and natural state of the agent. But it is rarely the effort succeeds in attaining its object. Mind is too discerning, too apprehensive, too inquisitive, too susceptible, to allow of imposition from such a source. There seems to be an instinct in human nature to resist the influences coming from affectation. It almost invariably fails to accomplish its end. There is no innocent faulty talker so little welcomed into company as the affected.

In illustration of this character still further the following is quoted from the Spectator, No. 38:—

"A late conversation which I fell into, gave me an opportunity of observing a great deal of beauty in a very handsome woman, and as much wit in an ingenious man, turned into deformity in the one, and absurdity in the other, by the mere force of affectation. The fair one had something in her person (upon which her thoughts were fixed) that she attempted to show to advantage, in every look, word, and gesture. The gentleman was as diligent to do justice to his fine parts as the lady to her beauteous form. You might see his imagination on the stretch to find out something uncommon, and what they call bright, to entertain her, while she writhed herself into as many different postures to engage him. When she laughed, her lips were to sever at a greater distance than ordinary, to show her teeth; her fan was to point to something at a distance, that in the reach she may discover the roundness of her arm; then she is utterly mistaken in what she saw, falls back, smiles at her own folly, and is so wholly discomposed that her tucker is to be adjusted, her bosom exposed, and the whole woman put into new airs and graces. While she was doing all this, the gallant had time to think of something very pleasing to say next to her, or to make some unkind observation on some other lady to feed her vanity. These unhappy effects of affectation naturally led me to look into that strange state of mind which so generally discolours the behaviour of most people we meet with."

"The learned Dr. Burnet, in his 'Theory of the Earth,' takes occasion to observe that every thought is attended with a consciousness and representativeness; the mind has nothing presented to it but what is immediately followed by a reflection of conscience, which tells you whether that which was so presented is graceful or unbecoming. This act of the mind discovers itself in the gesture, by a proper behaviour in those whose consciousness goes no farther than to direct them in the just progress of their present state or action; but betrays an interruption in every second thought, when the consciousness is employed in too fondly approving a man's own conceptions; which sort of consciousness is what we call affectation.

"As the love of praise is implanted in our bosoms as a strong incentive to worthy actions, it is a very difficult task to get above a desire of it for things that should be wholly indifferent. Women, whose hearts are fixed upon the pleasure they have in the consciousness that they are the objects of love and admiration, are ever changing the air of their countenances, and altering the attitude of their bodies, to strike the hearts of their beholders with new sense of their beauty. The dressing part of our sex, whose minds are the same with the sillier part of the other, are exactly in the like uneasy condition to be regarded for a well-tied cravat, a hat cocked with an uncommon briskness, a very well-chosen coat, or other instances of merit, which they are impatient to see unobserved.

"This apparent affectation, arising from an ill-governed consciousness, is not so much to be wondered at in such loose and trivial minds as these; but when we see it reign in characters of worth and distinction, it is what you cannot but lament, not without some indignation. It creeps into the hearts of the wise man as well as that of the coxcomb. When you see a man of sense look about for applause, and discover an itching inclination to be commended; lay traps for a little incense, even from those whose opinion he values in nothing but his own favour; who is safe against this weakness? or who knows whether he is guilty of it or not? The best way to get clear of such a light fondness for applause is to take all possible care to throw off the love of it upon occasions that are not in themselves laudable, but as it appears we hope for no praise from them. Of this nature are all graces in men's persons, dress, and bodily deportment, which will naturally be winning and attractive if we think not of them, but lose their force in proportion to our endeavour to make them such.

"When our consciousness turns upon the main design of life, and our thoughts are employed upon the chief purpose either in business or pleasure, we shall never betray an affectation, for we cannot be guilty of it; but when we give the passion for praise an unbridled liberty, our pleasure in little perfections robs us of what is due to us for great virtues and worthy qualities. How many excellent speeches and honest actions are lost for want of being indifferent when we ought! Men are oppressed with regard to their way of speaking and acting, instead of having their thoughts bent upon what they should do or say; and by that means bury a capacity for great things. This, perhaps, cannot be called affectation; but it has some tincture of it, at least, so far as that their fear of erring in a thing of no consequence argues they would be too much pleased in performing it.

"It is only from a thorough disregard to himself in such particulars that a man can act with a laudable sufficiency; his heart is fixed upon one point in view, and he commits no errors, because he thinks nothing an error but what deviates from that intention.

"The wild havoc affectation makes in that part of the world which should be most polite is visible wherever we turn our eyes: it pushes men not only into impertinencies in conversation, but also in their premeditated speeches. At the bar it torments the bench, whose business it is to cut off all superfluities in what is spoken before it by the practitioner, as well as several little pieces of injustice which arise from the law itself. I have seen it make a man run from the purpose before a judge, who was, when at the bar himself, so close and logical a pleader, that with all the pomp of eloquence in his power, he never spoke a word too much.

"It might be borne even here, but it often ascends the pulpit itself, and the declaimer in that sacred place is frequently so impertinently witty, speaks of the last day itself with so many quaint phrases, that there is no man who understands raillery but must resolve to sin no more. Nay, you may behold him sometimes in prayer, for a proper delivery of the great truths he is to utter, humble himself with so very well turned phrase, and mention his own unworthiness in a way so very becoming, that the air of the pretty gentleman is preserved under the lowliness of the preacher.

"I shall end this with a short letter I wrote the other day, to a very witty man, overrun with the fault I am speaking of.

"DEAR SIR,—I spent some time with you the other day, and must take the liberty of a friend to tell you of the insufferable affectation you are guilty of in all you say and do. When I gave you a hint of it, you asked me whether a man is to be cold to what his friends think of him. No; but praise is not to be the entertainment of every moment. He that hopes for it must be able to suspend the possession of it till proper periods of life or death itself. If you would not rather be commended than be praiseworthy, contemn little merits, and allow no man to be so free with you as to praise you to your face. Your vanity by this means will want its food. At the same time your passion for esteem will be more fully gratified; men will praise you in their actions: where you now receive one compliment, you will then receive twenty civilities. Till then you will never have of either, farther than,

"Sir, your humble servant,

"T."



X.

THE STULTILOQUIST.

"Compress the sum into its solid worth, And if it weigh the importance of a fly, The scales are false, or algebra a lie." COWPER.

This is a talker who seems to think that the best use of speech is to give currency to folly. He deals in thoughts and words which create laughter rather than convey instruction. The puns and witticisms of the shop, the street, the theatre, the newspaper, he reserves with sacredness for repetition in the social party, that he may excite the risible faculties, and give merriment to the circle. He appears to have no apprehension of anything that is serious and intelligent. The sum total of his conversation, weighed in the balance, is lighter than vanity. "The mouth of fools," says Solomon, "poureth out foolishness." If he is not true to the character, he is to the sign. He forgets altogether that there is a time "to weep," and talks in strains which make one think that he believes there is only a time "to laugh." To laugh and to create laughter is the main business of his tongue in all company.

He has no sympathy with Tennyson in the following lines:—

"Prythee weep, May Lilian! Gaiety without eclipse Wearieth me, May Lilian."

Or with Barry Cornwall, in his lines:—

"Something thou dost want, O queen! (As the gold doth ask alloy,) Tears, amidst thy laughter seen, Pity, mingling with the joy."

"That which is meant by stultiloquy," says Bishop Taylor, "or foolish talking, is the 'lubricum verbi', as St. Ambrose calls it, 'the slipping with the tongue,' which prating people often suffer, whose discourses betray the vanity of their spirit, and discover 'the hidden man of the heart.' For no prudence is a sufficient guard, or can always stand 'in excubiis,' 'still watching,' when a man is in perpetual floods of talk; for prudence attends after the manner of an angel's ministry; it is despatched on messages from God, and drives away enemies, and places guards, and calls upon the man to awake, and bids him send out spies and observers, and then goes about his own ministries above: but an angel does not sit by a man, as a nurse by the baby's cradle, watching every motion, and the lighting of a fly upon the child's lip: and so is prudence: it gives rules, and proportions out our measures, and prescribes us cautions, and by general influences orders our particulars; but he that is given to talk cannot be secured by all this; the emissions of his tongue are beyond the general figures and lines of rule; and he can no more be wise in every period of a long and running talk than a lutanist can deliberate and make every motion of his hand by the division of his notes, to be chosen and distinctly voluntary. And hence it comes that at every corner of the mouth a folly peeps out, or a mischief creeps in."

The stultiloquist's talk is like the jesting of mimics and players, who in ancient times were so licentious that they would even make Socrates or Aristides the subject of their jests, in order to find something to provoke the laugh. It is immaterial to him who or what presents itself; he will endeavour to extract therefrom something ludicrous or comical for the amusement of the company. He may injure the feelings of some; he may offend the modesty of others, and break all the rules of decorum; but what does he care? Merriment is of more importance to him than the most sacred feelings of other people.

Our talker may think that because his hearers listen and laugh, they appreciate his continued flow of stultiloquy. But he is mistaken; could he read the minds of the thoughtful and intelligent, he would find they become jaded long before he does: and if each could speak, he would hear the sentiment of the lines:—

"I'm weary of this laughter's empty din, Methinks this fellow, with his ready jests, Is like to tedious bells, that ring alike, Marriage or death."

Let not the reader infer from the preceding observations that a talker must always exclude from his conversation everything that partakes of the spirit of solid mirth and innocent cheerfulness. Certainly not. "To be a man and a Christian, one need neither be a mourning dove nor a chattering magpie; neither an ascetic nor a wanton; neither soar with the wings of an angel nor flutter with the flaps of a moth: for there is as substantial a difference between light-heartedness and levity as between the crackling pyrotechnics that disturb the darkness of the night and the natural sunlight which enlivens the day. Indecency and ribaldry bring down a man to the level of the beast, divesting him of all his rational superiority and soul-dignity. What appears equally contemptible with the man who stoops to make grimaces, to utter expressions, to tell tales, in one word, to act the fool for the amusement of others, while he is suffering actual disparagement, in proportion to their entertainment."

According to inspired wisdom, "no corrupt communication should proceed out of our mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers," that is, favour, complaisance, cheerfulness. We must avoid sullenness on the one hand, as we would jesting on the other. Sullenness is repulsive and hateful. Jesting is unseasonable and intolerable. But cheerfulness is the light of the soul, and the sunshine of life. It is an alleviator of human sorrow, an exhauster of oppressive cares. Jesting is frequently criminal and foolish; but cheerfulness is one of the convoys of religion—the festival spirit filling the heart with harmony and happiness. "It composes music for churches and hearts; it makes and publishes glorifications to God; it produces thankfulness, and serves the end of charity: and when the oil of gladness runs over, it makes bright and tall emissions of light and holy fires, reaching up to a cloud, and making joy round about: and therefore, since it is so innocent, and may be so pious and full of holy advantage, whatsoever can innocently minister to this holy joy sets forward the work of religion and charity. And, indeed, charity itself, which is the vertical top of all religion, is nothing else but a union of joys, concentred in the heart, and reflected from all the angles of our life and intercourse. It is a rejoicing in God, a gladness in our neighbour's good, a rejoicing with him; and without love we cannot have any joy at all. It is this that makes children to be a pleasure, and friendship to be so noble and divine a thing; and upon this account it is certain, that all that which can innocently make a man cheerful, does also make him charitable; for grief, and age, and sickness, and weariness, these are peevish and troublesome; but mirth and cheerfulness are content, and civil, and compliant, and communicative, and love to do good, and swell up to felicity only upon the wings of charity. Upon this account, here is pleasure enough for a Christian at present; and if a facete discourse, and an amicable friendly mirth can refresh the spirit, and take it off from the vile temptation of peevish, despairing, uncomplying melancholy, it must needs be innocent and commendable. And we may as well be refreshed by a clean and brisk discourse as by the air of Campanian wines; and our faces and our heads may as well be anointed and look pleasant with wit and friendly intercourse as with the fat of the balsam tree; and such a conversation no wise man ever did or ought to reprove. But when the jest hath teeth and nails, biting or scratching our brother,—when it is loose and wanton,—when it is unseasonable, and much, or many,—when it serves ill-purposes, or spends better time,—then it is the drunkenness of the soul, and makes the spirit fly away, seeking for a temple where the mirth and the music are solemn and religious."

In a world of this kind, where reign life and death, goodness and evil, joy and sorrow, we need a wise conjunction of seriousness and cheerfulness. While, on the one hand, our harps must not always be on the willows; neither must they always be high-strung and gaily played. Smiles and tears in their season harmonise better than all of one or the other out of season. With clouded sky for weeks we sigh for sunshine; as in Italy, under its long bright sky, they sigh for clouds. The time of the "singing of birds" and the efflorescence of trees is very welcome; but who does not equally welcome the time of fruit-bearing also? The lark soars in the air and sings merrily, but she also falls to earth and sings not at all. Jesus rejoiced; but "Jesus wept." The night of weeping and the morning of joy unite in one. So let the grave and the cheerful conjoin in speech, according to times and seasons, places and circumstances.

It is wise to have the two thus meet together. To be lifted up in hilarity is the precursor of being cast down in dejection. A sudden rise of the thermometer is generally followed by as sudden a fall. "I am not sorry," said Sir Walter Scott, after the breaking up of a merry group of guests at Abbotsford, "being one of those whom too much mirth always inclines to sadness."

"There is no music in the life That sounds with idiot laughter solely; There's not a string attuned to mirth, But has its chord in melancholy."

"To some men God hath given laughter; but tears to some men He hath given: He bade us sow in tears, hereafter to harvest holier smiles in heaven; And tears and smiles they are His gift; both good, to smite or to uplift: He tempers smiles with tears; both good, to bear in time the Christian mood."



XI.

THE SLANDERER.

"Whose edge is sharper than the sword: whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie All corners of the world; kings, queens, and states, Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave This viperous slander enters." SHAKESPEARE.

He has a mischievous temper and a gossiping humour. He deals unmercifully with his neighbour, and speaks of him without regard to truth or honour. The holy command given him by his Maker, to love his neighbour as himself, is violated with impunity. Like those busy tongues spoken of by Jeremiah, that would feign find out some employment, though it was mischief, he says, "Report, and we will report." He catches up any evil rumour, and hands it on to others, until, like the river Nile, it spreads over the whole land, and yet the head of it remains in uncertainty. He hides himself from discovery, like those fish which immerse themselves in mud of their own stirring.

He tells malicious stories of others, and ascribes odious names to them, without any just foundation for either. He defames and calumniates in company persons of whom no one present knows anything evil, or, if he does, prefers keeping it in his own mind. It seems his pleasure to cast filth into the face of purity; and bespatter innocence with foul imputations. No eminency in rank, or sacredness in office; no integrity in principle, or wisdom in administration; no circumspection in life, or benevolence in deed; no good-naturedness of temper, or benignity of disposition, escape the venom of his petulant tongue. Devoid of feeling himself, he speaks of other people as though they were devoid of it likewise. He can thrust at the tenderest heart, as though it was adamant, and deal with human excellencies as so many shuttlecocks to be played with by his slanderous words. The Christian religion does not escape his leprous speech. The Holy Scriptures and the Church of Christ come within the subjects of his viperous utterances. Even Jehovah Himself, in His names, attributes, and ways, is sometimes the topic of his unhallowed and blasphemous sayings.

The mental and moral attributes of the slanderer are of the most depraved and unhappy character. He is envious, selfish, jealous, vain, malignant, unbelieving, uncharitable, thoughtless, atheistical. St. James says that "his tongue is set on fire of hell."

As, however, there is in every other class of character a variety of manifestations, so in that of the slanderer.

The highest manifestation of this talker in regard to men consists in bearing false witness against a neighbour; charging him with things of which he is not guilty: as in the case of those who said, "Naboth did blaspheme God and the king," when he had not done so. Thus did the slanderer speak against David: "False witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty;" "They laid things to my charge that I knew not." A second manifestation of slander is the application to persons of epithets and phrases which they do not deserve. Thus Korah and his company denounced Moses as unjust and tyrannical. Thus the Jews spoke of Christ as an impostor, a blasphemer, a sorcerer, a wine-bibber, a glutton, possessed of the devil, an instigator of the people to anarchy and rebellion. A third manifestation is, aspersing a man's actions with mean censures, intimating that they proceed from wrong motives and principles. Another is, the perversion of a man's words or deeds so as to give them a contrary appearance and signification to what was intended. Another is, the insinuation of suggestions, which, although they do not directly assert falsehood, engender wrong opinions towards those of whom they are made. Another is, the utterance of oblique and covert reflections, which, while they do not expressly amount to an accusation of evil, convey the impression that something is seriously defective. Another is, the imputation to a man's practice, judgment, profession, or words, consequences which have no connection with them, so as to deteriorate him in the estimation of others. Another is, the repetition of any rumour or story concerning a man likely to injure his character in society. Another is, being accessory to or encouraging slander in any sense or degree.

The Apostle James speaks of slander as "poison." "The deadliest poisons," says the Rev. F. W. Robertson, in a sermon on this passage, "are those for which no test is known; there are poisons so destructive that a single drop insinuated into the veins produces death in three seconds, and yet no chemical science can separate that virus from the contaminated blood and show the metallic particles of poison glittering palpably, and say, 'Behold, it is here.'

"In the drop of venom which distils from the sting of the smallest insect, or the spike of the nettle leaf, there is concentrated the quintessence of a poison so subtle that the microscope cannot distinguish it, and yet so virulent that it can inflame the blood, irritate the whole constitution, and convert day and night into restless misery.

"Thus it is with some forms of slander. It drops from tongue to tongue; goes from house to house, in such ways and degrees, that it would sometimes be difficult to take it up and detect the falsehood. You could not evaporate the truth in the slow process of the crucible, and then show the residuum of falsehood glittering and visible. You could not fasten upon any word or sentence, and say that it was calumny; for in order to constitute slander, it is not necessary that the words spoken should be false—half truths are often more calumnious than whole falsehoods. It is not even necessary that a word should be distinctly uttered; a dropped lip, an arched eyebrow, a shrugged shoulder, a significant look, an incredulous expression of countenance, nay, even an emphatic silence, may do the work; and when the light and trifling thing which has done the mischief has fluttered off, the venom is left behind to work and rankle, to fever human existence, and to poison human society at the fountain springs of life."

Glance at the evil effects of slander. Beauty is defaced, goodness is abused, innocence is corrupted, justice is dethroned, truth is denied and violated. Motives are impugned, and purposes misinterpreted. Sacred principles are treated with scorn, and honourable actions are slimed over with disgrace. The minister is falsely represented to his people, and the people to their minister. Church persecutes Church, and Christian maligns Christian. Ill feelings are created between master and servant. Friend is separated from friend. Neighbour is set against neighbour. Business men are thrown into mutual antagonism. Whole families are excited to animosities and strifes. Churches are raised into ferment and divisions. Political parties are brought into rivalry and contention. The passions are kindled into fury, and blood for blood, tooth for tooth, eye for eye, are the precepts of mutual action. Fame is arrested in its course and turned backwards. Honour is thrown into the dust. Worth is cast into the streets; usefulness is perverted into mischievousness. Noble aspiration is said to be selfishness. Whatever slander touches, it leaves upon it the slimy trail of the old serpent, and infuses its poisonous venom; and were it not for the angel of truth which destroys both, irretrievable ruin would be the consequence.

"The tongue of the slanderer," says Massillon, "is a devouring fire, which tarnishes whatever it touches; which exercises its fury on the good grain equally as on the chaff, on the profane as on the sacred; which, wherever it passes, leaves only desolation and ruin; digs even into the bowels of the earth, and fixes itself on things the most hidden; turns into vile ashes what only a moment before had appeared to us so precious and brilliant; acts with more violence and danger than ever, in the time when it was apparently smothered up and almost extinct; which blackens what it cannot consume, and sometimes sparkles and delights before it destroys."

"He that uttereth slander is a fool," says the Wise Man. "He is a fool," remarks Dr. Barrow, "because he maketh wrong judgments and valuations of things, and accordingly driveth on silly bargains for himself, in result whereof he proveth a great loser." His "whole body is defiled" by it, says the Apostle. As a Christian he is enfeebled in his spiritual strength. As a moralist he is weakened in his influence and character. As a neighbour he loses respect and confidence. As a talker in company he is shunned by the sincere and charitable. "A fool's mouth," observes Solomon, "is his destruction: his lips are the snare of his soul." "Thy tongue," says the Psalmist, "deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. Thou lovest evil more than good, and lying rather than to speak righteousness. Thou lovest all-devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue. God shall likewise destroy thee for ever; He shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling-place, and root thee out of the land of the living" (Ps. lii. 2-5).

"You cannot stop the consequences of slander," says the Rev. F. W. Robertson; "you may publicly prove its falsehood, you may sift every atom, explain and annihilate it, and yet, years after you had thought that all had been disposed of for ever, the mention of a name wakes up associations in the mind of some one who heard it, but never heard or never attended to the refutation, or who has only a vague and confused recollection of the whole, and he asks the question doubtfully, 'But were there not some suspicious circumstances connected with him?' It is like the Greek fire used in ancient warfare, which burnt unquenched beneath the water; or like the weeds, which, when you have extirpated them in one place, are sprouting forth vigorously in another spot, at the distance of many hundred yards; or, to use the metaphor of St. James himself, it is like the wheel which catches fire as it goes, and burns with a fiercer conflagration as its own speed increases; 'it sets on fire the whole course of nature' (literally the wheel of nature). You may tame the wild beast; the conflagration of the American forest will cease when all the timber and the dry underwood is consumed; but you cannot arrest the progress of that cruel word which you uttered carelessly yesterday or this morning,—which you will utter, perhaps, before you have passed from this church one hundred yards: that will go on slaying, poisoning, burning beyond your own control, now and for ever."

In conclusion, a few suggestions may be given, which, if taken, may assist in the cure or prevention of this evil disease of the tongue.

1. Consider well the ninth commandment of the Decalogue, which requires you not to bear false witness against your neighbour.

2. Abstain from the company of slanderers. "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil." Slandering is contagious. Slanderers help one another. Prefer being alone, or seek that company in which the slanderer is not admitted.

3. Do not interfere in the affairs of other people, when they do not concern you. "Study to be quiet, and to mind your own business." This will occupy all your time and attention, and leave you no opportunity of picking up and spreading abroad slanderous tales about your neighbours. The slanderer is very often an idler, and a busy-body in other men's matters, while his own lie in confusion and tend to ruin. Look at home. Set thy own house in order. Make up thy own accounts. Pay thy own bills. Rectify the disorder of thy own affairs. In doing these things you may find enough to do, without working in the field of slander.

4. Remember that you have your own weak points and failings, as well as he of whom you may utter slanderous things. Were you to use the mirror of reflection, and look into your own life honestly, you would probably see faults which would make you think, "Well, I have plenty of failings of my own, without saying anything about those of others. I have a beam in my own eye to take out, before I attempt to take the mote out of my brother's. I see that I live in a glass house myself, and must be careful at whom I throw stones. I must wash my own hands in innocency before I complain of others being unclean."

5. Consider that, as you value your character, other people value their character. As you do not like to be slandered, neither do they. Do, therefore, unto them as you would have them do unto you.

6. Think of the consequences of slander, and if you have a spark of beneficence in your nature, you will avoid the practice of it.

7. It will be as well for you not to imagine yourself of so great importance in the world, and others of such insignificance. Be not high-minded, but fear. It is generally from an eminence of self-importance that the slanderer speaks of those who occupy a position of real and given eminence. If he would step down from that cloudy pedestal, and occupy his own place, he would probably think less of himself and more of others.

8. Give no countenance to the slanderer. Keep your patronage for some one of nobler worth: some one more generous and charitable, more philanthropic and Christian. Give him no entrance into your house. Prefer his room to his company. Write over the doorway of your residence, "No admission for slanderers." And in case he should find an entrance, inscribe upon the walls of your rooms what St. Augustine inscribed upon his,—

"He that doth love on absent friends to jeer May hence depart, no room is for him here."

Close your ears to his slanders whenever and wherever you meet him. "Lend not your ears," says an old writer, "to those who go about with tales and whispers; whose idle business it is to tell news of this man and the other: for if these kind of flies can but blow in your ears, the worms will certainly creep out at your mouth. For all discourse is kept up by exchange; and if he bring thee one story, thou wilt think it incivility not to repay him with another for it; and so they chat over the whole neighbourhood; accuse this man, and condemn another, and suspect a third, and speak evil of all."



XII.

THE VALETUDINARIAN.

"Some men employ their health, an ugly trick, In making known how oft they have been sick; And give us, in recitals of disease, A doctor's trouble, but without his fees." COWPER.

This is a talker who may very properly occupy a place in our sketches. It may not be necessary to give a description of his person. And were it necessary, it would be difficult, on account of the frequent changes to which he is subject. It is not, however, with his bodily appearance that we have to do. He cannot perhaps be held responsible for this altogether. But the fault of his tongue is undoubtedly a habit of his own formation, and may therefore be described, with a view to its amendment and cure.

The Valetudinarian is a man subject to some affliction, imaginary or real, or it may be both. Whatever may be its nature, it loses nothing by neglect on his part, for he is its devoted nurse and friend. Night and day, alone and in company, he is most faithful in his attentions. He keeps a mental diary of his complaints in their changing symptoms, and of his general experience in connection with them. Whenever you meet him, you find him well informed in a knowledge of the numerous variations of his "complicated, long-continued, and unknown afflictions."

* * * * *

Mr. Round was a man who will serve as an illustration of this talker. He was formerly a merchant in the city of London. During the period of his business career he was remarkably active and diligent in the accumulation of this world's goods. He was successful; and upon the gains of his prosperous merchandise he retired into the country to live on his "means." The sudden change from stirring city life into the retirement and inactivity of a rural home soon began to affect his health; and not being a man of much education and intelligence, his mind brooded over himself, until he became nervous and, as he thought, feeble and delicate. His nervousness failed not to do its duty in his imagination and fancy; so that, with the two in active working, a "combination of diseases" gradually took hold of him, and "told seriously upon his constitution."

Mr. Round, having given up his business in the city, now had a business with his afflictions in the country. He studied them thoroughly, in their internal symptoms and external signs. He could have written a volume of experience as to how he suffered in the head, the nerves, the stomach, the liver, the lungs, the heart, etc.; how he suffered when awake and when asleep; how he suffered from taking a particular kind of food or drink; and how he did not suffer when he did not take a particular kind of food and drink; how he thought he should have died a thousand times, under certain circumstances which he would not name. These things he could have pictured in a most affecting manner to his reader. But it was not in writing that Mr. Round described his multitudinous ailments. It was in talking. This to him was great relief. A description of his case to any one who was patient enough to hear him through did him more good than all the pills and mixtures sent him by Doctor Green, his medical attendant. This habit of talking about his sickness became as chronic as the sickness itself. He seemed to know little of any other subject than the real and imaginary complaints of his body; at least, he talked about little else. If in conversation he happened to commence in the spirit, he soon entered into the flesh, and there he ended. If by an effort of his hearer his attention was diverted from himself, it would with all the quickness of an elastic bow rebound to his favourite theme. Out of the sphere of his own "poor body," as he used to call it, he was no more at home in conversation than a fish wriggling on the sea-beach.

Mrs. Blunt invited a few friends to spend an evening at her house. The company was composed mostly of young persons, in whom the flow of life was strong and buoyant. The beginning of the evening passed off amid much innocent enjoyment from conversation, singing, music, and reading. In the midst of this social pleasure, who should make his appearance but Mr. Round, accompanied by Mrs. Blunt? She introduced him to the company, and to be polite, as he thought, he shook hands with every one in the room. This performance took up the best part of half an hour, as he gave each one a brief epitome of his imaginary disorders. As he was speaking first to one and then another, the whole party might have heard his melancholy voice giving an account of some particular item of his affliction. One could hear the responses at intervals to his statements,—"Oh"—"Ah"—"A pity you are so sick"—"Why, I never"—"Dear me"—"Is it possible?"—"Why, how can you live so?"—"I wonder how you survived that,"—coming from various parts of the room. Not only on entering, but during his stay, he talked about his symptoms, his fears, his hopes, his dangers, in respect to his "dreadful sickness." Occasionally he would point to his eyes, observing "how sunken and bedimmed!" then to his cheeks, saying "how pale and deathly they seem!" Then again, he would call attention to the thinness of his hands and arms, saying, "He was not near the man he used to be, and he feared he never should be again. Although he was out that evening, he ought not to have been, and he expected to suffer severely through the night for it. If he had the health he once had, or the health of his friend next him, there was nothing he would enjoy more than that evening; but now he was past it. His doctor had been visiting him for years; but he didn't seem to get any better, and he thought he should have to give him up, or lose all the money he had. O dear! the room was too warm, he could not breathe; that door must be opened; that singing distracted him; he loved the piano once—now his nerves could not stand it. He thought it became young people to be very serious and devout in the prospect of an affliction which might be as melancholy as his was. But he could not remain any longer; he was afraid of stopping out nights, and therefore he must wish them good-bye and retire."

This was about the substance of all he said during his visit. He was like an iceberg rolled into the genial temperature of the social atmosphere. What did those young people care to know about his health, excepting the usual compliments at such times? The room was not an hospital, and the company a collection of inquiring, medical students. He was no worse that evening than he had been months before. But as he had not seen most of them until now he probably thought that would be an interesting opportunity to entertain them with a full and particular account of "his complicated and long-continued afflictions."

As soon as Mr. Round had gone from the room a general rallying was the result.

"The bore is gone, the valetudinarian has made his exit," exclaimed Master Thompson, rather excited.

"O how pleased I am that he has left!" said Miss Young.

"So am I," responded Mr. Baker, "for he is one of the greatest plagues that ever came near me. He is enough to give one the horrors, in hearing so much of his sick talk."

"He was not satisfied in simply telling us that he was not very well; but he must enter into a long and tedious detail of all his sicknesses," observed Mr. Wales.

"Well, poor man, he is to be pitied, after all. He suffers a great deal more in his imagination from his sickness than we have in reality by hearing him tell of it," said Miss Swaithe, a little sympathetically.

"I don't know about that," said young Spencer.

"Is Round gone, then?" asked Mr. Burr, a young man who had left the room soon after he came in, having been annoyed with his valetudinarian twaddle.

"He's no more," answered Miss Glass, in a tone somewhat ironically funereal.

"Why, he's not dead, is he?" inquired Mr. Burr, quickly. "I should not be surprised if he were; for, judging from what he said, one would expect him to die any moment."

"O no; he's not the one to die yet, be sure of that; but he's gone for the night," said Miss Glass.

"Thank goodness for his departure: I do not mean to another world, but from this company. Yet where would be the harm in wishing him in heaven, where none shall ever say they are sick?" said Mr. Ferriday.

"I see no harm in wishing a good thing like that," said Miss Bond—"a good thing for him and other people too."

"Don't be so unkind and unmerciful," said Mrs. Grant.

"I do not think I am so," replied Miss Bond, "for if he was in heaven, he would be cured of all his diseases; and he says he never shall be in this world. And then other people would be happily exempted from the misery of listening to his invalid tales every time they met with him."

"How his wife does to live with him I cannot tell," remarked Miss Bond.

"I suppose she is used to him," said Mr. Burr.

"Come now, let us have no more talk about Mr. Round, or we shall be catching some of his diseases," said Miss Crane.

Soon after the above talk had ceased, Mr. Burr took up a copy of Cowper's poems which lay on the table. He opened on the subject of "Conversation," and, in reading, came to the part which describes the Valetudinarian. Having read it over to himself, he could not refrain asking permission to read it aloud.

"Although we have dismissed the subject of Mr. Round," said Mr. Burr, "yet, if the company have no objection, I would like to read from Cowper's poems a short piece which I think will interest you, as being descriptive of the Valetudinarian, who has been with us this evening."

General consent being given, Mr. Burr read as follows:—

"Some men employ their health, an ugly trick, In making known how oft they have been sick; And give us, in recitals of disease, A doctor's troubles, but without his fees; Relate how many weeks they kept their bed, How an emetic or cathartic sped; Nothing is slightly touched, much less forgot, Nose, ears, and eyes, seem present on the spot. Now the distemper, spite of draught or pill, Victorious seemed, and now the doctor's skill; And now—alas for unforeseen mishaps!— They put on a damp nightcap and relapse; They thought they must have died, they were so bad; Their peevish hearers almost wish they had."

"That's capital," cried out Mr. Strong.

"It is Mr. Round's character to a tick," said Mrs. Blunt, who was better acquainted with him than any one else in the room.

"It seems to me," said Miss Young, "that Cowper must have had Round before him when he wrote those lines."

"Cowper is a splendid poet," observed young Brown, who was rather pedantic; "he is my favourite among the poets. I have been accustomed to read him from my boyhood. I always admire his description of character. Who but a Cowper could have written that admirable extract just given to us by Mr. Burr, and which was read with such elegance?"

"Come," said Mr. Burr, "give us a tune on the piano, Miss Armstrong."

The company again left the Valetudinarian for their social enjoyments; and not long after left Mrs. Blunt's for their respective homes.



XIII.

THE WHISPERER.

"And when they talk of him they shake their heads, And whisper one another in the ear; And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist, Whilst he that hears makes fearful action With wrinkled brows, with nods, and rolling eyes." SHAKESPEARE.

His stock of information is always of the most original kind, and no want of it into the bargain. No one is acquainted with the facts treasured in his memory but himself. Nor does he want any one else to know, excepting a particular friend in whom he has the greatest confidence. And he will only inform him in a whisper, lest any other should hear; and this upon the sacred condition that he will never discover the secret to his nearest friend, not even to the wife of his bosom. And lo, when the grand secret is divulged into his inclining and attentive ear, it is either an old story which everybody knows, or a communication of gossip about some one in whom he has no interest whatever.

Peter Hush is a Whisperer often met with in the ranks of life. He is a descendant from an ancient family of that name, which has lived so long that the origin can scarcely be traced out. He stands related to a vast number of Hushes located in different parts of the world. It is the business of Peter, in the first place, to walk around in the neighbourhood where he resides in order to pick up what scraps of information he can find. He cares not where he finds them, nor how, nor what they are; he has a use for them. He collects stories in the private history of individuals, mixed up with a slight degree of scandal. The sickness of persons, evening parties, clandestine visits, secret courtships, elopements, marriages, difficulties of tradesmen, quarrels of husbands and wives, rumours from abroad respecting a newly located neighbour, with such-like things, constitute the commodity which he gathers. He is seldom or ever without a stock on hand; if he cannot give you of one kind, he can of another. Sometimes I have met him in a bye-road, and, before he told me what he had to say, he came close to me, and being a little shorter than myself, stood on tip-toe, and whispered in my ears; then telling me aloud, "Be sure now you say nothing about it; I wouldn't have it repeated for all the world." Poor Peter need not have been alarmed, for I knew the thing long before he did. I have been alone with him in a large room, and he would take me up one corner to whisper something in my ears. He has a way sometimes of ending his whispering revelations with a loud, "Do not you think so?" then whisper again, and then aloud, "But you know that person," then whisper again. The thing would be well enough if Peter whispered to keep the folly of what he says among friends; but, alas! he does it to preserve the importance of his own thoughts. It is a wonderful thing that, although he is never heard to talk about things in nature, and never seen with a book in his hand, yet he can whisper something like knowledge of what has and of what now passes in the world, which one would think he learned from some familiar spirit that did not think him worthy to receive the whole story. But the truth is, he deals only in half accounts of what he would entertain you with. A help to his discourse is, "That the town says, and people begin to talk very freely, and he had it from persons too considerable to be named, what he will tell you when things are riper." He informs you as a secret that he designs in a very short time to reveal you a secret; you must say nothing to any one. The next time you see him the secret is not yet ripened, he wants to learn a little more of it, and in a fortnight's time he hopes to tell you everything about it.

You may sometimes see Peter seat himself in a company of eight or ten persons whom he never saw before in his life; and after having looked about to see that no one overheard, he has communicated unto them in a low voice, and under the seal of secrecy, the death of a great man in the country, who was perhaps at that very moment travelling in Europe for his pleasure. If upon entering a room you see a circle of heads bending over a table, and lying close to one another, it is almost certain that Peter Hush is among them. Peter has been known to publish the whisper of the day by eight o'clock in the morning at one house, by twelve at a second, and before two at a third. When Peter has thus effectually launched a secret, it is amusing to hear people whispering it to one another at second hand, and spreading it about as their own; for it must be known that the great incentive to whispering is the ambition which every one has of being thought in the secret and being looked upon as a man who has access to greater people than one would imagine.

Besides the character of Peter Hush, as a whisperer, there is Lady Blast, about whom a word or two must be said. She deals in the private transactions of the sewing circle, the quilting party, with all the arcana of the fair sex. She has such a particular malignity in her whisper that it blights like an easterly wind, and withers every reputation it breathes upon. She has a most dexterous plan at making private weddings. Last winter she married about five women of honour to their footmen. Her whisper can rob the innocent young lady of her virtue; and fill the healthful young man with diseases. She can make quarrels between the dearest friends, and effect a divorce between the husband and wife who never lived on any terms but the most peaceful and happy. She can stain the character of the clergymen with corruption, against which no one could ever utter the faintest moral delinquency. She can beggar the wealthy, and degrade the noble. In short, she can whisper men base or foolish, jealous or ill-natured; or, if occasion requires, can tell you the failings of their great-grandmothers, and traduce the memory of virtuous citizens who have been in their graves these hundred years.