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Evil Speaking

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Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 27, 1856

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 9, No. 4.

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Evil Speaking.

By Israel Champerlayne

If you are an evil speaker, you will probably say: 1. “O, I mean no harm!” No harm at all. You only enact the part of Solomon’s madman, or fool—I forget which—throw around you fire-brands, arrows, and death, and, wiping your mouth, demand: “Am I not in sport?” But, perhaps, you are he that “seemeth to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue.” If so you will be very apt to say.
2. “I can’t bear such abominable practices—such vile creatures—and I must speak my mind.” I understand you. You must sin, because you love God so well. You hate sin, and love holiness, so violently, that you must serve the devil. Is this your religion? Bless God that you have no more of it; for if what you have impels you to break one of his plainest commandments, it follows, that if you only had enough of it, you would be constrained, to break them all. Be no longer deceived. There is no necessity for it. The case is plain. It is not because you hate sin, and love holiness, that you are an evil speaker. Directly the reverse; it is because you love sin, and are unwilling to be sanctified, that you are living in this scandalous and guilty practice to this day.
3. But objections come thick, and must be disposed of by a shorter method.
OBJECTION.—“If we must say nothing of the absent but good, we shall find ourselves under very uncomfortable restraints.”
ANSWER.—And so you ought, till you learn to be easy and happy without dabbling in the muddy waters of detraction.
O. “The whole world is in the practice.”
A. “The whole world lieth in the wicked one.” “Come out from among them, and be ye separate.”
O. “But the Church is in the same condemnation.”
A. “All are not Israel that are of Israel.” The charge is too indiscriminate. “Thou hast a few names even in Sardis, who have not defiled their garments.”
O. “Who is free from it?”
A. Every truly honest man.
O. “According to this doctrine, where is there a true Christian?”
A. Wherever the principles laid down in Ps. xv, and in 1 Cor. xiii, are exemplified.
O. “This view of the subject shows a very strait way to heaven.”
A. “Strait is the gate.”
O. “It opens the portal of life to but a very few.”
A. “Few there be that find it.”
O. “But what is to become of all the ministers and church members who habitually speak evil one of another?”
A. We can tell better when we know whether they finally repent or not.—Israel Champerlayne.