WORDS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 4, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 31.

If the merely idle word is one day to be accounted for and judged, what of the untrue, the impure, the profane, the malignant, and cruel words with which this earthy air is continually charged? Only a movement of the lips, a moment’s stirring of the air, and all is silent, as tho the word had never been spoken; yet a fellow-creature’s happiness has been blighted; a heavy burden has been made still heavier to bear; a heart has been robbed of its guilelessness and trust; the seed has been sown of a career that ends in ruin and death.

Those words are not dead. Tho they seem to be buried in everlasting oblivion, yet when the judgment throne is set and earth’s myriads are gathered together to be by their words justified or by their words condemned, they will return with solemn, reverberating echo out of the darkness of the past, and fall with dismay and shame on the ears of those who spoke them.

And those other words—faithful, pure, benign—passing to and fro among men like white-winged angels, carrying messages of love and hope and healing from heaven; words almost divine in their ennobling influence, helping us ever onward and upward along life’s journey—these, too, will awake from their sacred slumber, and, amid the grateful murmur of the multitude whom they have gladdened, comforted, and saved, their blessed sound will be heard on earth once more.—The Equitable Record.