p. 31 | Evil Speaking

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 11, 1871

Evil Speaking.

THE following anecdote is related of the late excellent J. J. Gurney, by one who, as a child, was often one of his family circle:—

One night—I remember it well—I received a severe lesson on the sin of evil speaking. Severe I thought it then, and my heart rose in childish anger against him who gave it; but I had not lived long enough in the world to know how much mischief a child’s thoughtless talk may do, and how often it happens that great talkers run off the straight line of truth. I was talking very fast about some female relative, who did not stand very high in my esteem, and was about to speak further of her failings of temper. In a few moments my eyes caught a look of such calm and steady displeasure that I stopped short. There was no mistaking the meaning of that dark, speaking eye. It brought the color to my face, and confusion and shame to my heart. I was silent for a few moments, when Joseph John Gurney asked, very gravely, “Dost thou not know anything good to tell us of her?”

I did not answer, and the question was more seriously asked, “Think; is there nothing good thou canst tell us of her?”

“Oh! yes; I know some good things, certainly; but—”

“Would it not have been better, then, to relate these good things, than to have told us that which must lower her in our esteem? Since there is good to relate, would it not be kinder to be silent on the evil? ‘Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity,’ thou knowest.”

It was our custom every morning for Miss Gurney and any little visitor she might have with her, to go, before breakfast, into the room next to her father’s dressing room, and repeat some portions of the Scripture. On the following morning I was desired to read in the 13th chapter of first Corinthians, and afterward to commit a portion of it to memory. There was no comment made on what I read; it was not necessary. The reproof was felt, even to the shedding of tears; but the kind voice and silent kiss soon spoke love and peace, and I was comforted. “A word spoken in season, how good it is!”

Every one who visited his house must have been impressed with the superior tone of conversation there, with the absence of scandal and small talk; and when persons, rather than things, were a little too much in the discourse of the juniors, how ingeniously, and yet how kindly, has the subject been put aside, and some other matter of innocent interest been introduced in its stead!—Sel.