March 16

Let your speech be always with grace. — Col. iv. 6.

But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. — MATT. v. 37.

WHAT gift so valuable and such a source of pleasure as that of speech, conversation, — the expression of thought between man and man! And yet what gift so liable to abuse! The Teacher who "spake as never man spake" here, in his Sermon on the Mount, shows us how to beware of this evil. He warns us to let our words be few.

Careless speech tends to frivolity. He who utters many words will speak many ill-advised, foolish things.

We should be on our guard also against rash, hasty speech. This is the most frequent source of unkindness, of uttering angry, heart aching words. "A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger" (Prov. xv. 1).

Heeding this precept will, too, keep us from impiety. It was because he reflected before he spoke that Job "charged not God foolishly" with unjust providential dealings, and "in all this did not sin with his lips" (Job ii. 10).

Few words, again, are the more likely to be resolute, decisive words. A positive "Nay" to the tempter, how often it has rescued a youth from vice, or saved a soul to heaven, where compromising speech would have lost both!

Let us remember then, each day, this counsel of Jesus and begin it with the Psalmist's prayer: "Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips" (Psalm cxli. 3).

Junius B. Remensnyder.

Direct, control, suggest, this day,

All I design, or do, or say,

That all my powers, with all their might,

In thy sole glory may unite.

BISHOP KEN.