and the hearts of
those to whom he talks so much were only full of truth and love. But our
hearts and our neighbours' hearts being what they are, in the multitude
of words there wanteth not sin. So much of our talk is about our absent
neighbours, and there are so many misunderstandings, prejudices,
ambitions, competitions, oppositions, and all kinds of cross-interests
between us and our absent neighbours, that we cannot long talk about them
till our hearts have run our tongues into all manner of trespass. Bishop
Butler discourses on the great dangers that beset a talkative temperament
with almost more than all his usual sagacity, seriousness, and depth. And
those who care to see how the greatest of our modern moralists deals with
their besetting sin should lose no time in possessing and mastering
Butler's great discourse. It is a truly golden discourse, and it ought
to be read at least once a month by all the men and all the women who
have tongues in their heads. Bishop Butler points out to his offending
readers, in a way they can never forget, the certain mischief they do to
themselves and to other people just by talking too much. But there are
far worse sins that our tongues fall into than the bad enough sins that
spring out of impertinent and unrestrained loquacity. There are many
times when our talk, long or short, is already simple and downright evil.
It is ten to one, it is a hundred to one, that you do not know and would
not believe how much you fall every day and in every conversation into
one or other of the sins of the tongue. If you would only begin to see
and accept this, that every time you speak or hear about your absent
neighbour what you would not like him to speak or hear about you, you are
in that a talebearer, a slanderer, a backbiter, or a liar,--when you
begin to see and admit that about yourself, you will not wonder at what
the Bible says with such bitter indignation about the diabolical sins of
the tongue. If you would just begin to-night to watch yourselves--on the
way home from church, at home after the day is over, to-morrow morning
when the letters and the papers are opened, and so on,--how
instinctively, incessantly, irrepressibly you speak about the absent in a
way you would be astounded and horrified to be told they were at that
moment speaking about you, then you would soon be wiser than all your
teachers in the sins and in the government of the tongue. And you would
seven times e