I Told Betty | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 15, 1875

“I Told Betty.”

One good man advised a newly-married couple never to be angry both at once. There was wisdom in the suggestion; for when one scatters fire it is quite time the other should start after water. A colored man related his plan for avoiding family jars as follows:—

“I telled Betty when we was wed, dat if she saw me getting angry like, she must go to the bucket and fill her mouth wid water; and if I saw her getting out of herself, I’d go to the bucket and fill my mouth wid water. So we never had any quarrels; for one can’t quarrel alone, and another can’t quarrel wid you when his mouth’s full of water.”

“We never had any quarrels.” How many married people can say that? And yet most quarrels proceed from an ungoverned tongue. Of the ten commands which God gave, two are directed against the offenses of the tongue; one in the first table, and one in the second. So it appears that an ungoverned tongue wars against God’s glory and against man’s peace. Bridling the tongue is a duty for all, and of him who neglects it, it is said, “That man’s religion is vain.” And if there is no other way to do it, it is better to fill the mouth with water than to open it and give free scope to a tongue which “is a fire,” and which “setteth on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell.”—Selected.