3609 - Bywords by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 28, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 47.

3609 — Bywords

By Editor

Does it become a Christian to exclaim "Gracious!" "Goodness!" or "Mercy!" when something annoying or surprising is said or done?

We think it is a great deal better, always, under all circumstances, to eschew bywords of every sort and kind. There are many who are called profane men who do not take the name of God in vain because of anything that they have against God. They simply do it through foolish habit, and nothing else. Really, it is taking what might almost be called God's name in vain in the use of such terms as above given. God is gracious, that is His attribute, pre-eminently. He is the eternal Goodness; that also is pre-eminently His attribute, for only God is good. It does not add force to conversation, nor any particular emphasis to what we are saying, to intersperse it with bywords. "Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil."