p. 114 | A Timely Reproof

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 12, 1865

A Timely Reproof.

HuMOR and sharp wit are never put to better use than in answering a fool according to his folly, and we could wish that reproofs like the following were more frequent:

Some five or six years ago, in one of the trains of cars running between Newark and Jersey City, New Jersey, there was a young naval officer, who was constantly intermingling his conversation with the most profane oaths. A young lady was so situated that she could not but hear every time he swore. At first she bore it with perfect equanimity; then, as it continued, and rather increased in the shocking character of his imprecations, she began to grow fidgety,

and her eyes flashed. We knew a bolt would soon be shot, and that it would strike him. It came directly.

“Sir, can you converse in the Hebrew tongue?”

“Yes,” was the answer, in a half unconscious, but slightly sneering tone.

“Then,” was the reply, “if you wish to swear any more, you would greatly oblige me, and probably the rest of the passengers also, if you would do it in Hebrew.”

I watched him. It had hit. His color came and went—now red, now white. He looked at the young lady, then at his boots, then at the ceiling of the cars; but he did not swear any more, either in Hebrew or English, and he probably remembered that young lady.