p. 137 | Unguarded Language by ADOLPHUS SMITH

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 26, 1867

Unguarded Language.

By ADOLPHUS SMITH

“Let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.”

It is the pleasure of Satan to perplex and irritate the child of God, so that if it be possible he may be brought under condemnation to the above law of Christ. Knowing that he cannot provoke the Christian to open blasphemy, he takes advantage of circumstances, betraying the unwary into the use of unnecessary interjections and idle phrases. “These things ought not so to be.”

The ungodly are continually watching the righteous, and we know not how often a complaining Christian, unsanctified in word and manner, may decide them to remain in their sins. I well remember the pain I felt, when a boy, and soon after my conversion, at hearing my Sabbath-school teacher, whom I thought a model Christian, exclaim, “George!” because he stubbed his toe and came near falling.

The Christian should cultivate a cheerful spirit, obliging manners, and a chaste conversation, and, true as the needle to the pole, should turn to Christ and the glory to be revealed. “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt.” “But I say unto you that for every idle word that man shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”

ADOLPHUS SMITH.

Blendon, Mich.