it so often overflows with the scoriae of this awful propensity.
You will never swear yourself up. You will swear yourself down. The
Mohammedans, when they find a slip of paper they cannot read, put
it aside, for fear the name of God is on it. That, you say, is one
extreme. We go to the other.

You are willing to acknowledge this a miserable habit, and would like
to have some recipe for its cure.

Reflect much upon the uselessness of the habit. Did a volley of oaths
ever start a heavy load? Did curses ever unravel a tangled skein? Did
they ever extirpate the meanness of a customer? Did they ever collect
a bad debt? Did they ever cure a toothache? Did they ever stop a
twinge of the gout? Did they ever save you a dollar, or put you a step
forward in any great enterprise? or enable you to gain a position, or
to accomplish anything that you ever wanted to do? How much did
you ever make by swearing? What, in all the round of a lifetime of
profanity, did you ever _gain_ by the habit?

Reflect, also, upon the fact that it arouses God's indignation. The
Bible reiterates, in paragraph after paragraph, and chapter after
chapter, the fact that all swearers and blasphemers are accursed now,
and are to be forever miserable. There is no iniquity that has been so
often visited with the immediate curse of God.

At New Brunswick, a young man was standing on the railroad track
blaspheming. The cars passed, and he was found on the track with his
tongue cut out. People could not understand how, with comparatively
little bruising of the rest of his body, his tongue could have been
cut out. Not long ago, in Chicago, a man told a falsehood, and said
that he hoped, if what he said was not true, God would strike him
dead. He instantly fell. There was no longer any pulse. There was no
reason for his death, except that he asked God to strike him dead,
and God did it. In Scotland a club was formed, in which the members
competed as to which could use the most horrid oaths. The man who
succeeded best in the infamy was made president of the club. His
tongue began to swell. It protruded from his mouth. He could not draw
it in. He died within three days. Physicians were astounded. There was
nothing like it in all the books. What was the matter with him? _He
cursed God, and died!_ Near Catskill, N.Y., during a thunder-storm, a
group of men were standing in a blacksmith-shop. There came a crash
of thunder, and the men were startled. One man said tha