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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
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THE 
 
 FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 REV. W. H. LUCKEXBACH, A. M. 
 
 WITH AX INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 MILTON VALENTINE, D. D., 
 
 PRESIDENT OP PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE, GETTYSBURG, PA. 
 
 
 °%i W* 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: ^ib/^flru/i r^i*^ 
 
 LUTHERAN PUBLICATION SOC?fi l l , ! l f il1 
 
 1884. 
 

 Copyright, 1884, 
 By the Lutheran Publication Society. 
 
 IZ--3& 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface . 5 
 
 Introduction by M. Valentine, D. D. . . \ . . 11 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 The Prevalence of Profanity at Home 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Prevalence of Profanity Abroad 44 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Uselessness of Profanity 64 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Vulgarity of Profanity 87 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HOW IT iAFFECTS CONVERSATION 109 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Inexcusableness of Profanity 138 
 
 (3) 
 
4 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. PAGE 
 
 On Reverencing the Name of God 167 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 A Sublime Apostrophe to the Deity 189 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 What the Bible Says of Profanity 220 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 How to Suppress Profanity 245 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 An Appeal to the Profane 272 
 
 Index of Topics 299 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 t I ^0 many minds the folly of profanity may be too 
 -*- apparent to need a volume of argument to prove ■ 
 it. We are glad that we can agree with them, so 
 far as they hold that it is a folly. It gratifies us, 
 also, to believe that the folly is so apparent to them 
 that they neither practice it themselves, nor coun- 
 tenance it in others. We heartily wish that there 
 vrere no exceptions to this feeling of aversion to it. 
 In this event it. would certainly be a work of super- 
 erogation, and an actual waste of time and labor, to 
 indite a volume against its indulgence. 
 
 But there are very many persons who, though 
 guilty of the vice, yet have never given it a serious 
 thought. They have habituated themselves to it so 
 long, that they seem to have become unconscious of 
 its guiltiness. They daily sin against their Maker 
 and themselves, with no apparent sense of the enor- 
 mity of their offense. It is for them, if they can 
 be persuaded to read it, that this essay was written. 
 If any thought, suggestion, or statement herein 
 presented, shall have the effect of making them half 
 as unfriendly towards the vice as is the writer, his 
 object will partly be gained; while, if the argument 
 (v) 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 of the essay, as a whole, shall persuade them to 
 desist entirely from it, that object will be wholly 
 accomplished. There is many a swearer who needs 
 but a faithful delineation of his vice, in all its hid- 
 eousness, to convince him of its criminality,. and, 
 hence, of his duty immediately to quit it. While, 
 to this end, other and more skillful pens might have 
 portrayed it more strikingly, or handled the subject 
 more effectually, yet the writer prays Him for the 
 vindication of whose name it was attempted, not to 
 let this volume fail of its purpose, in the instance of 
 any swearer who may think it worth while to read 
 it. 
 
 Here and there, in these pages, there is language 
 which, to some minds, may seem too severe, as con- 
 demning the vice in question. To others, however, 
 who have not merely given it a passing, regretful 
 thought, but have deeply considered its malignancy, 
 as tarnishing the glory both of God and of man, it 
 merits even more severe denunciation than the writer 
 expresses. True, zeal without discretion is more 
 destructive than promotive of the end it contem- 
 plates. While we would feel uneasy, indeed, un- 
 der such a charge, yet, to discuss so gross a vice as 
 profanity, with the view of dissuading men from its 
 indulgence, in terms so soft and smooth as almost 
 to make the reader think that we were rather en- 
 couraging than discouraging it, w T ould just as surely 
 occasion in us the feeling of deep self-condemnation, 
 
PREFACE. » Vll 
 
 The swearer himself, calmly and deliberately look- 
 ing at his sin on all sides, cannot but frankly admit, 
 that it deserves all the condemnation which any 
 zealous "friend of God," when observing it, may 
 express. 
 
 The writer, on beginning this volume, expected 
 to prepare a chapter on Answered Imprecations . 
 But as the facts which he had on hand, touching 
 this feature of the general subject, were, to his own 
 mind, not sufficiently attested to challenge implicit 
 belief, he has therefore omitted it. He has no 
 doubt but that a volume of instances, proving that 
 God is not always "mocked" with impunity, but 
 that He often signally visits the blasphemous swearer 
 with unexpected vengeance — instances supported 
 by unquestionable testimony — might easily be com- 
 piled. If any of the readers of this essay who are 
 in possession of well-authenticated examples of an- 
 swered oaths, or of instances which have happened 
 under their own immediate notice, will communicate 
 them to the writer, they may be of some service to 
 him, in the event that another edition of this volume 
 may be wanted by the public. 
 
 It may not be immodest to state here, that this 
 first attempt of the writer at book-making is the 
 outgrowth of a sermon on profanity which he has 
 preached at different times and places, in the course 
 of his ministerial life, and which has always been 
 received with the most positive expressions of ap- 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 probation. It remains to be seen how much good 
 will be accomplished by this more elaborate treat- 
 ment of the subject than could be given to it within 
 the brief limits of a half hour's discourse. 
 
 We commit it, then — this volume of protest 
 against a wide-spread evil — to the public. We 
 commit it to the moral as well as to the immoral 
 portion of the public. Assured that the former is 
 in sympathy with his effort to depict the odiousness 
 of a sin which, if allowed unlimited and unrebuked 
 indulgence in the world, would eventually convert 
 it into a very pandemonium, the writer, therefore, 
 need not formally ask them to endorse what he has 
 here presented more especially for the good of the 
 latter class of persons. No Christian or un-Chris- 
 tian mind can be too well filled with reverential 
 thought of the Supreme Being. In the cultivation 
 of such thought lies the incentive to the scriptural 
 duties which He has pronounced essential to salva- 
 tion. 
 
 We anticipate, not without some anxiety, the 
 ordeal of criticism to which the public is wont to 
 submit every book which claims to be worthy of its 
 notice. Exceptions will probably be taken to some 
 things in the following pages, — things which, though 
 not agreeable to them, yet loyalty to truth and duty 
 compelled us to write against those whom they con- 
 cern. We would have none to divest himself, if it 
 were possible, of the right of criticism. All that 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 we ask of any reader who finds that he cannot 
 agree with us is a fair, thorough, reasonable exami- 
 nation of the matters thus questioned. If he can 
 prove that any statement herein made, or idea sug- 
 gested, or proposition set forth, is unphilosophical, 
 or unscriptural, or both, the writer will not be hu- 
 miliated by acknowledging himself at fault. Stim- 
 ulated by the difference which the reader may dis- 
 cover between his own and our views, to earnest 
 inquiry into the nature, tendencies, relations, and 
 effects of the common vice of profanity, he will 
 probably find himself, after all, quite as hostile to 
 it as we, though he may not accord with all our 
 sentiments. In the light of reason, or of revela- 
 tion, what can be urged as having the force of argu- 
 ment for its support ? Nothing, — absolutely noth- 
 ing. W. H. L. 
 Germantown, Col. Co., jV. Y. 
 
l^TKODITOTIOK 
 
 THFFORTS for the overthrow of wasting evils 
 -*-^ need a more positive encouragement from all 
 good men. "Were it given as it should be, the tri- 
 umph of virtue and order would be speedily assured. 
 The sway of vices is usually to be credited largely 
 to the consenting unconcern of Christians. It is 
 their negative attitude in moral conflicts, that gives 
 the field still to forces of desolation. The bad work 
 is done by good men's standing aloof. It is the 
 old explanation : "because they came not up to the 
 help of the Lord against the mighty." The Chris- 
 tian world greatly needs the bracing call : "Ye 
 that love the Lord, hate evil." The overthrow of 
 wickedness requires the robust strength of a more 
 intense hatred of it. Love of virtue is not enough. 
 There must be that other side of healthy moral life 
 — a holy indignation against wrong-doing, that both 
 fortifies personal character and deals destroying 
 blows on destroying vices. 
 
 Against no evil of our day, probably, is positive 
 effort more needed than against the vice of profan- 
 ity. Of its sad prevalence and desolating influence, 
 there can be no doubt. Against it should be ar- 
 
 (xi) 
 
Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 rayed the earnest help of every Christian and good 
 citizen, and the force of every repressive agency. 
 Its overthrow will require the combined use of all 
 available means. The great agency of the press 
 especially must be employed against it. To some 
 extent this has long been done, in the way of occa- 
 sional paragraph and incidental rebuke. The dis- 
 cussion to which these few pages are introductory 
 invokes its aid in the fuller form, if not wider meas- 
 ure, of the bound volume. 
 
 An entire volume on this subject, we believe, is 
 something never before attempted. The subject 
 has not been an attractive one for literary ambition. 
 It does not invite by the range of bright and pleas- 
 ant thought in which self-indulgent taste delights 
 to move and enjoy itself. It deals with a vice that 
 is so low, so vulgar and offensive to refined feeling, 
 that it is difficult to gain and hold to a discussion of 
 it the attention of even the sternest moralists. It 
 allows no very wide or varied range of thought. It 
 calls for a severe and rebuking tone throughout. 
 The aversion felt toward the sin is transferred to 
 the subject. It is not pleasant work for even Her- 
 cules to clean Augean stables. But the greater is 
 the merit of the service. And the true servant of 
 God does not shrink from it because it may not be 
 attractive, or invite by its intrinsic fascinations. 
 The work is done at the call of duty. This volume 
 is the fruit of a deep conviction that there is here 
 
INTRODUCTION. xm 
 
 an evil which demands the prompt attention and 
 
 repressing hand of all good men. This certainly 
 gives it a strong claim upon the favor of the Chris- 
 tian public. 
 
 The work has been written for the people, and 
 is to be judged of in the light of its practical aim. 
 Seeking to arouse effective opposition against an 
 admitted vice, a vice confessed by all to be incapa- 
 ble of defense and full of blighting power, the 
 author has addressed the appeal to the masses of 
 thoughtful and intelligent men. It is largely a plea 
 with the profane themselves. Judged of in the 
 light of its earnest and most worthy practical de- 
 sign, it will be found to be clear, strong, and im- 
 pressive. It deals its blows with a view to force. 
 Its seeming severity — in trenchant denunciation and 
 unspared adjective — will be excused by all such as 
 are rightly impressed with the enormity of the evil 
 condemned. Many of the books that appear from 
 the press are published in response to an awakened 
 interest on the subjects of which thev treat. They 
 are made for the market, and appear because there 
 is a flood-tide of aroused attention that will carry 
 them into immense sales. But this volume comes 
 to the public apathy on its subject. The ;; strong 
 man's goods '' in this house of profanity are com- 
 paratively in peace. The vice has free course 
 largely by reason of the prevalent unconcern about 
 it. One of the terrible features of the evil is that 
 
XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 it so hardens the minds of men into insensibility to 
 its criminality, that when the sin is greatest it is 
 not felt to be sin at all. It seems to be innocent 
 when habit has given it its completest sway. The 
 need is greater by the very absence of interest on 
 the subject. The prevalent indifference must be 
 view r ed as the most impressive proof that the work 
 is called for. No reform in the land is demanded 
 by stronger reasons or more sacred interests. When 
 the Christian life of the country is arousing itself 
 for the overthrow of the curse of intemperance, and 
 the correction of the foul system of easy divorce 
 now threatening the holy order of the family, it 
 would be eminently fitting if these great reform 
 movements were attended by another which should 
 break the prevalence of profanity, and save our 
 American life from its degrading and hardening 
 effects. 
 
 Mr. Luckenbach does not ask us to assent to 
 every view expressed in this volume. On some 
 points of which he treats, there is room for differ- 
 ing opinions. On the question of judicial oaths 
 and other points many will dissent. But in the 
 great aim of the book, and in the leading line of its 
 teaching, all sober and Christian men will cordially 
 agree. And they cannot fail to be stimulated by 
 reading it to a more earnest endeavor to have the 
 sacred name hallowed among men. This volume 
 will itself be a ready means to aid them. By put- 
 
INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 ting it into the hands of the young, or of persons to 
 be preserved or rescued from the wicked habit, 
 much good must necessarily be accomplished. 
 
 The author has not dwelt upon profanity in lit- 
 erature. Probably the evil in this form is less in 
 our times than in some past periods. But there is 
 quite enough of it to call for great care on the part 
 of parents, and all persons vrho have direction and 
 control of the reading of the young. Much of the 
 trashy literature of the day, for which, alas ! the 
 youthful mind has too keen a relish, is sadly dis- 
 figured with profane phrase and ugly expletive. 
 Many a young man learns profanity or is trained 
 in it by such reading. There is not a single vice 
 in the whole list of immoralities which blight char- 
 acter and disorder society, that is not begun or 
 fostered into ranker growth by the suggestion and 
 stimulus of our cheap novels and other low publica- 
 tions. The guardians of our public morals are 
 finding this an open source of much of the vice that 
 is cankering both social and personal life. It is 
 not among the lightest grounds of charge against 
 this literature, that it weakens and destroys the 
 spirit of reverence, and loosens the tongue of pro- 
 fanity. 
 
 The practice against which this book is written, 
 it must be acknowledged, is too thoroughly fixed 
 in the depravity of human nature to allow the 
 hope that it will ever wholly cease. Till depravity 
 
XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 itself ceases to be irreverent, will it tend to show 
 itself in this way. As long as the fountain re 
 mains, the stream will flow. Only as men are 
 made true Christians, and the reign of divine grace 
 through the blessed Gospel shall reach on into its 
 millennial ascendency, may we hope that these dis- 
 cords of sin will disappear in holy adoration and 
 worship. Yet this does not release the servants 
 of God and friends of morality from the duty of 
 seeking its most effective suppression. Nor does 
 it exclude the just hope that a more earnest Christ- 
 ianity and a purer civilization, quite attainable, will 
 be able to abate much of the evil. A single re- 
 covery from it is a reason for much joy. The 
 preservation of the young from its blight, to a better 
 degree than now, will compensate for all the en- 
 deavor that secures it. All the work thus accom- 
 plished brings on a better state. This volume can- 
 not but do good. As a worthy effort to call atten- 
 tion to a most important subject, it deserves a fav- 
 orable reception. As a clear and impressive por- 
 trayal of the folly it exposes, it cannot but quicken 
 every reader's conscience and effort against it, and 
 strengthen the influences that are needed to check 
 and diminish it. M. Valentine. 
 
 Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, Pa. 
 
THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 
 
 /^~\NE of the commonest sins of the times is pro- 
 ^-^ fanity. It is but telling the truth, to confess 
 that it has become so prevalent as to deserve the 
 diatinction of being called a national characteristic 
 — a distinction of which certainly no pure-minded cit- 
 izen can feel proud, and which cannot but awaken his 
 fears, if he seriously believes what history has often 
 • proved, that a nation lacking in moral principle has 
 no trustworthy guarantee of perpetuity. It is not, 
 and, arguing from his very nature and the relations 
 which man sustains to Him, it cannot be secure 
 against ultimate extinction, however prosperous it 
 may have been for centuries, without a reverent 
 recognition, and an actual practical as well as 
 merely official or formal acknowledgment of the 
 Supreme Being. 
 
 An intelligent, observing foreigner need not 
 travel far inward from the ocean-line on either side 
 of this western continent, before he will be sur- 
 prised at the extent to which this vice is indulged 
 (17) 
 
18 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 by our people. Among the first sounds that he 
 will hear, when he steps upon our shores, will be 
 voices profaning the 
 
 " One dread Name 
 Which he who deepest graves within his heart 
 Is wisest, though the world may call him 'fool/ M 
 
 Strolling along the quays of the port where he 
 has arrived, and hearing the grossest blasphemies 
 and irreverent expressions from gangs of stevedores 
 handling the cargoes of the vessels lying there, and 
 squads of loungers idly looking on, and from the 
 little, ragged "Arabs," roaming here and there, in- 
 tent upon mischief or petty larceny, and the fre- 
 quenters of the dens, fetid store-rooms, junk-shops, 
 and sailors' boarding-houses of " Front" or "Water 
 streets," he may find some relief for his wounded 
 sense of reverence for the Supreme Being, in the 
 hope that once away from such surroundings, and 
 in the presence of high-toned people, he will not 
 thus be made to suffer. But further observation 
 proves his hope to have been delusive. If, from the 
 vicinity of the piers of the seaport, business led him 
 into the counting-houses of mercantile life, or the 
 more finely appointed offices of commercial ex- 
 change, he would frequently hear the most offensive 
 profanity there. If intent upon social recreation, 
 and in company with some friend, he visited the 
 club-rooms of the metropolis, he would hear it 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 19 
 
 there. If, craving amusement, he went to the 
 theatre, he would hear it there — about the doors, in 
 the lobby, in the pit, on the boards, and playing 
 the eaves-dropper, behind the curtains, or in the 
 green-room. If he mingled with the crowd, jost- 
 ling together on some steamboat and making for 
 some shady grove, to enjoy a day's respite from 
 hard labor and breathe the pure air of the country, 
 he would hear it there. If, expecting to post him- 
 self on the extent and resources of our proud 
 country, he hurried to the grand depot, and on one 
 or another of our great routes of travel, hied north- 
 ward, or southward, or eastward, or westward, he 
 would scarcely find a station at which the train 
 stopped, in a trip of but a hundred miles, where he 
 would not be compelled to hear the blatant voice of 
 profanity. If, halting for a day or two for sight- 
 seeing at one of our popular watering places, he 
 happened at the bar, or in the billiard-parlor, or in 
 the bowling-alley, he would hear it there. If he 
 attended the trials of speed, vulgarly called " races," 
 which usually constitute one of the recreations pro- 
 vided for the patrons of such establishments, he 
 would hear it there. If, on his trips in any direc- 
 tion, he " stopped over" at one of our manufactur- 
 ing centres, to take notes of our advancement in 
 the practical arts, he would not listen long to the hum 
 of machinery without hearing it above the whirl 
 and twirl of a thousand spindles. If he traveled 
 
20 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 inland thousands of miles, till he reached the far- 
 thest longitudinal line touched by the hardy pioneer, 
 he would hear it there — he would observe, that of 
 the few memorials of the more civilized region from 
 which he migrated, there was none that the fron- 
 tiersman held more tenaciously than the irrational 
 vice of profanity. 
 
 There are but few places on this American con- 
 tinent which such a stranger might feel inclined to 
 visit, where he would not hear either an oath so 
 shocking as almost to curdle his blood, or some in- 
 considerate mention of his Maker's name, which, re- 
 sembling profanity very closely, is evidently of the 
 same paternity, the devil. The blasphemy of 
 swearers tingling thus in his ears wherever he 
 moved, it could hardly be denied that we deserved 
 his irony, if, on leaving our shores homewards, he 
 were heard to say, ""A Christian people, this! Yet 
 everywhere the name 
 
 " '* * that seraphs tremble at, is hung 
 
 Disgracefully on every trirler's tongue !'" * 
 
 Assuming that such an observing foreigner had 
 mingled freely with our people, while on his tour 
 of our country, he could tell only what he had seen 
 and heard, if, on reaching his home, he said that 
 this low vice is not peculiar here to any single class, 
 but is more or less common to all classes. 
 
 *Cowper's Expostulation, lines 662-663. 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 21 
 
 Though comparatively rare, yet now and then 
 instances become known, and are blazoned before 
 the world by the press — always so ready, and some- 
 times manifestiDg a degree of anxiety, to publish 
 their delinquencies — even of ministers of the gos- 
 pel, who, notwithstanding the sacredness of their 
 profession and the holy character of the work to 
 which they have been solemnly ordained, are guilty 
 of profanity. We mean not the needless and often 
 offensively familiar reiteration of the name of the 
 Supreme Being, which is heard too frequently from 
 some pulpits, and to which, in another chapter, we 
 shall call the attention of the reader, as amounting 
 to profanity, but actual swearing in conversation. 
 Happily for the church, and the success of the 
 cause she represents, the instances of such minis- 
 terial immorality are not many. The few of which 
 the world is now and then informed by the Argus- 
 eyed press, are quite too many, in a vocation one 
 of the very first qualifications for which is that the 
 candidate, or incumbent, should be a man of clean 
 speech. 
 
 It is, too, a melancholy admission, which the con- 
 scientious chronicler of the present times cannot 
 honestly refuse to make, that there are hundreds — 
 to many readers of these pages it would not seem 
 extravagant to say thousands — of members of our 
 various churches throughout the land who are guilty 
 of this vice. Some are known to be habitual swear- 
 
22 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 ers, while others, profaning the holy name now and 
 then in a fit of passion, or under irritating circum- 
 stances, are tolerated and often excused, and thus 
 encouraged by their fellow-members of the same 
 church to whom their sin is known, by the soft plea 
 that they only do it occasionally. That an avowed 
 Christian can, either habitually or only " occasion- 
 ally," profane His name to whose service, in the 
 presence perhaps of hundreds of witnesses to the im- 
 pressive act, he once formally and solemnly conse- 
 crated himself, and yet retain his Christian char- 
 acter, is a fiction which, for the safety of the 
 swearing members of their flocks, pastors should 
 more frequently and boldly expose from their pul- 
 pits. 
 
 It is more than inconsistency — it is real sacrilege 
 — for a Christian professor, known to be given to the 
 crime of blasphemy, to approach His table and par- 
 take of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper without 
 any contrition for his sin, as a pre-requisite to the 
 privilege or duty. Unlike the Corinthian sacri- 
 lege — making the supper a scene of riotous revelry 
 — yet, if it be at all probable that the awful doom 
 "eating and drinking damnation,"* which St. Paul 
 predicated of the Christian bacchanals of his day, 
 can be incurred in any manner by any one in the 
 present age, surely one way of risking it is, to per- 
 
 * 1 Cor. xi. 29. 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 23 
 
 sist in the habit of using profane language, notwith- 
 standing one's profession of piety, and then unre- 
 pentingly, yet with seeming solemnity and meek- 
 ness, approach the sacramental board, from time to 
 time, to "show the Lord's death till he come." 
 The lips and tongue which can so often, and so 
 easily, ungratefully, and boldly abuse His name 
 who " so loved the world, that He gave His only 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
 should not perish, but have everlasting life,"* can- 
 not " worthily" touch the symbols of that Saviour's 
 sacrificial sufferings and death. If the least irrev- 
 erence towards their ideal gods w^as a sufficient 
 reason to the heathens of antiquity for warning the 
 offender away from their superstitious ceremonies, 
 surely it could not be thought an unreasonable 
 thing, while it would contribute much to make the 
 reputation of the church more secure, if profane 
 professors of the Christian faith in the present gos- 
 pel age were utterly refused admission to this holy 
 ordinance. 
 
 The church discipline which takes cognizance of 
 other sins against the decalogue — that would ex- 
 communicate an adulterer, or suspend a thief, but 
 w^hich tolerates an habitual swearer without so 
 much as a word of remonstrance against his vice, 
 cannot be sustained by the plea that it can contem- 
 plate not the secret and unobserved, but only the 
 
 *Johiiiii. 16. 
 
24 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 open or overt transgressions of its subjects ; since 
 there is not one of the ten laws constituting the 
 decalogue, which, when violated at all, is, as a rule, 
 violated more openly, daringly, and shamelessly 
 than the third of the Sinai tic code. 
 
 Nor can it soften in the least the ugly, forbidding 
 features of the act or habit of swearing, to call it 
 by any milder name than it deserves. It is too 
 highly criminal to be classed with a thousand other 
 less guilty acts that men commit as a mere "folly." 
 It is too gross a violation of too solemn a law, to 
 admit of any attempt to lessen its magnitude by 
 softly calling it a " foible." As it argues not mere 
 moral imbecility in the swearer, but real, strong 
 hostility to the will and law of God, it amounts to 
 a contradiction of the truth to mildly term it, a 
 "weakness" or "infirmity." As it evinces in the 
 sinner not only such moral weakness as disquali- 
 fies him without divine aid for religious duty, but 
 real power to do evil — real distinct power — it does 
 not adequately define the offence to call it a 
 "frailty." It is more than an "error" — a term 
 predicable of many a deviation from the line of 
 strict conduct, which we can much more easily ex- 
 cuse than than that of common swearing ; and more 
 than a "fault" — a word used as expressing some- 
 thing lacking, which holds true even of the most 
 finished human character; and more than a " mis- 
 take," a term applicable to a thousand human acts 
 which contract no guilt whatever. 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 25 
 
 This unchristian habit of profaning the holy name 
 of God, of which be it here recorded to the shame 
 of so many church-members of the present day that 
 they are guilty, is not the innoxious or harmless 
 thing — the mere peccadillo — which, by too many 
 persons, disposed to indulge too amiable a view of 
 the vice, is implied in their use of the half-apologetic 
 terms already noticed, as describing it. As com- 
 mitted against God it is a sin — a terrible sin; as a 
 violation of human law it is a crime — a shameless 
 crime; — a sin and crime which, if the fact be well 
 weighed that it is the only one prohibited in the 
 decalogue the commission of which the Almighty 
 solemnly protests shall make the sinner guilty before 
 Him, can hardly be estimated as being less enor- 
 mous than adultery, or murder. No feeling of deli- 
 cacy, therefore, on her part, or fear that her inter- 
 ests may suffer if she took disciplinary cognizance 
 of this crime, should induce the church to wink at, 
 or allow, its indulgence by any — not even the least 
 known or influential, of her members. The disci- 
 pline which permits any member of a Christian 
 church — and the shame is but the greater if he be 
 a prominent member — who is an habitual swearer, 
 to remain in undisputed, intimate fellowship with 
 God's people, is not deserving of the name: it is 
 the merest farce. 
 
 That it is indulged only by the immoral poor, or 
 the abandoned — those whom popular judgment has 
 2 
 
26 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 consigned to the lowest stratum of society, as if 
 it were a necessary, or an inseparable accompani- 
 ment of the imagined degradation of poverty, or a 
 plant indigenous to the soil only of low life — is a 
 mistake which only one can make who has had but 
 little to do with the higher classes. While it neither 
 lessens their shame nor excuses their guilt, to know 
 that others, far above them in the social scale, do 
 the same unlawful things Avhich have brought them 
 to disgrace, yet, down in the slums of the " Five 
 Points,"* or of " Alaska St."f there are abandoned 
 characters who, in respect of the guilt of coarse 
 vulgar swearing, might look squarely and unblink- 
 ingly in the face many of the higher circles of so- 
 ciety, and without fear of successful contradiction, 
 truthfully claim to be their peers. J 
 
 Not only is the shameless courtesan whom society 
 scowls out of its parlors, slamming the door in her 
 face as being too degraded to be allowed fellowship 
 with the reputable; nor the blatant, swaggering 
 
 * New York City, 
 f Philadelphia. 
 
 $ " Would that society were always consistent in its 
 estimate of criminality, and did not mete out to crime a 
 measure of contempt and punishment shamefully irre- 
 spective of deterring circumstances of birth, education, 
 associates, etc ., in one case, and in another of propensi- 
 ties and temptations too strong for the weak moral and 
 intellectual powers, habits, etc., of such unfortunates as 
 fill our prisons. But no, these last, for whom physical 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 27 
 
 sailor, strolling along the piers and creeping into 
 the low places of our seaports ; nor the poor, crazed 
 inebriate, reeling along the street, an object of 
 merriment to thoughtless youths, and of terror to 
 nervous ladies; nor the sooty, begrimed miner, 
 whose dangerous employments should ever keep 
 him mindful of eternity, the gravest problem man 
 can attempt to solve ; nor the daring, reckless rail- 
 road employe whose next rash step may plunge him 
 into its mysteries ; nor the actor whose morals, for 
 the only reason often that he is an actor, are so 
 generally questioned — not only are such sinners, 
 from whom, on meeting them incidentally on the 
 street, the more respectable, gathering their fine 
 apparel about them, move on with averted faces, as 
 if the least contact with the moral lepers might pol- 
 lute them, guilty of this detestable vice. 
 
 It is as well known to the reader as to the writer 
 of this page, that there are many of the so-called 
 "upper classes," who, though they would redden 
 with indignation if you but hinted that they were 
 not " gentlemen," or " ladies," can, nevertheless, 
 and do, from time to time, without a change of 
 countenance or tinge of shame — in a manner as dis- 
 organization, parents, society, circumstances, in fine edu- 
 cation, have done so little, are generally looked npon with 
 Pharisaic detestation only, while pity is unjustly reserved 
 for the criminals of more * respectable connexions.' " — A 
 German Philosopher. 
 
28 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 reputable as it is deliberate — " take the name of 
 the Lord their God in vain." The number of men 
 is not small who, though they affect superiority of 
 position, or great consequence in the social world, 
 and aim, hence, to distinguish themselves and their 
 families from inferior people, by their handsome 
 homes, their stylish apparel, and their "turn-outs," 
 yet, by their language so far degrade themselves, 
 that, if some ragged, filthy outcast appeared at their 
 door, and, on the ground alone of equality of moral, 
 or rather immoral character, claimed the right to 
 enter their drawing-room and fellowship with them, 
 it would be a monstrous denial of justice on their 
 part to order him away. 
 
 The mere hint here of the fact, that there are 
 many living instances of gross profanity in high 
 life, is sufficient to suggest to the reader, if his 
 acquaintanceship reaches up to the departments of 
 our state and national governments, the names of 
 men almost of world-wide reputation, of whom, by 
 reason of their eminent position, the Christian mind 
 of the nation expects at least the moral decorum of 
 a gentleman. It is not a secret which, for the 
 moral interests, if not for the good name of the 
 nation as a whole, we need lake any special pains 
 to conceal, that some of our most distinguished 
 statesmen are among the most profane men of the 
 age. Too large — quite too large a proportion of 
 members of our respective state legislatures, and 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 29 
 
 of our national congress — men who would indig- 
 nantly resent, if they heard it, any contemptuous 
 mention of their own name, and claim to be too 
 honorable to allow the name of a friend to be disre- 
 spectfully mentioned in their hearing — men who 
 would not feel themselves complimented, and would 
 at once set you down as an ignorant, uncultured 
 rustic, if in your address to them, as correspondents, 
 you wrote plain "Mr." and not "Hon." — men 
 whom the people have elevated to offices of grave 
 responsibility to make their laws, to originate and 
 execute measures looking to the development of the 
 moral as well as the material interests of the com- 
 monwealth, or of the nation — are shamelessly guilty 
 of this vice. 
 
 It is respectfully submitted to their sense of the 
 fitness of things — a faculty which the people who 
 make them legislators expect them to cultivate to 
 the highest degree, and without which it would be 
 sheer burlesque to call them wise, and the veriest 
 foolishness to expect them to become successful re- 
 presentatives — that a man who has himself no re- 
 spect for the laws of his Maker, one of the plainest 
 of which solemnly forbids profanity, is not morally 
 competent to make laws for his fellow-men. Lack- 
 ing, thus, in moral competency for the responsible 
 office of a law-maker, though his other qualifications 
 be never so varied, real, and eminent, yet his con- 
 stituents cannot feel that their interests are perfectly 
 
30 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 safe in his hands. It is an insult to common sense 
 to allege, that immorality is not a disqualification 
 for an office whose duties affect the welfare of a 
 state, or nation. This is to destroy the distinctions 
 between right and wrong — distinctions on the con- 
 scientious observance of which depends the very 
 existence of good government. 
 
 To those who thoughtfully consider the intimate 
 relations that obtain between the religion and the 
 prosperity of a people, it has become a grave ques- 
 tion, whether or not one whose repeated gross im- 
 pieties prove him to be destitute, we will not say of 
 peculiarly Christian, but of the common universally 
 acknowledged principles of morality, should be in- 
 vested with such important functions as belong to a 
 legislator. It is incredible to them, that the senator 
 or representative who habitually violates the first 
 duty of man, reverence for the Supreme Being, is 
 entitled by any legitimate construction of language, 
 to be called a "man of integrity." If only to men 
 of this type should be entrusted the guardianship of 
 interests that affect millions of persons — a high- 
 sounding, very moral sentiment, so frequently heard 
 from pulpit, press, and platform, that we expect the 
 common-place from the lips of every orator who rises 
 up to enlighten us on public affairs — it seems some- 
 what singular to the best classes of our citizen- 
 voters, that in the popular estimate of what consti- 
 tutes integrity, there is so little if any consideration 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 31 
 
 at all of the moral unsoundness , the evident, actual 
 wickedness, which is evinced by the known profanity 
 of many candidates for office. 
 
 Purity of speech is at once the first and truest 
 sign of moral integrity. A man of this stamp 
 guards his lips against the utterance of foul lan- 
 guage, as well as his hands against dishonest deal- 
 ing. His words are as unexceptionable as his acts. 
 Habituating himself to the use of language becom- 
 ing the character he wears, he is careful to offend 
 no one by the least indecent word, while from actual 
 blasphemy, or common swearing, he recoils with an 
 abhorrence that plainly evinces the sincerity and 
 depth of his moral sense. No brilliancy of talent 
 in debate, nor capacity for oratory, nor political 
 sagacity, nor profound knowledge of political econ- 
 omy, nor high social rank, nor mere loyal partisan- 
 ship, can be accepted by those who have given this 
 subject the thought which it deserves, as a satisfac- 
 tory substitute for the morality of which the first 
 and simplest sign is respect for the name of God. 
 Hence the feeling which, we are glad here to record, 
 is growing stronger throughout the land, that in- 
 stead of elevating to office brilliant bad men, it is 
 much wiser and safer, in order to the welfare and 
 perpetuity of the nation, to elect men of good 
 morals, though, aside from their known morality, 
 they have no claim upon the admiration of the 
 world, except that they are full of good, practical, 
 
32 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 common sense. In face of the sneers of a partisan 
 press, the writer will scratch from his ticket, at any 
 election, though it be but an election for Justice of 
 the Peace, the name of any candidate who is known 
 to be an habitual swearer ; for he cannot be con- 
 vinced by any sort of logic, that an office-holder 
 who can coolly and deliberately call upon his Maker 
 to "damn" his constituents will conscientiously 
 labor to do them any good. 
 
 It is not without some misgiving, whether these 
 strictures on the profanity of some of our public 
 men, if they should fall under their eye, will be 
 commended by them. Be this as it may, " a sober, 
 second thought" on this vice, as practiced by them, 
 must lead them to about the same conclusions that 
 the writer has ventured to express. If they wo.uld 
 but always observe towards their Maker the same 
 rule of decorum which the dignity of the senate, or 
 assembly, requires them to observe towards each 
 other, the faithful chronicler of the times would be 
 spared the mortification of protesting that, by rea- 
 son of their immorality, they are hardly fit to 
 represent a respectable constituency. Should one 
 of them utter an indecent word, or profane exple- 
 tive, in the course of a heated discussion on some 
 subject commanding their attention while in official 
 session, he would instantly be called to order, and 
 made to apologize for his ill-spoken words. Such 
 a transgressor of the proprieties of the time and 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 83 
 
 place would be compelled to confess his sin as pub- 
 licly as he committed it. Not less, but infinitely 
 more offensive to His majesty by whom "Kings 
 reign, and princes decree justice"* is the swear- 
 ing which they are known to indulge when absent 
 from the hallowed enclosure of legislative halls, 
 where they would not dare to utter it. Even were 
 these eminent law-makers atheists in their religious 
 belief, if atheists can be supposed to have any relig- 
 ious belief at all, so that they did not regard pro- 
 fanity as being criminal for its impiety, yet the 
 single consideration of their official character, as 
 representing a people who do most religiously be- 
 lieve in the existence of God, ought to have weight 
 enough to persuade them to abstain from a vice so 
 offensive to the best classes of their constituents. 
 The sentiment of the poet Shelley deserves their 
 serious thought, who, though they affect political 
 greatness, yet belittle as well their office as them- 
 selves by indulging so humiliating a vice as is pro- 
 fanity — 
 
 " Man who man wonlcl be, 
 Must rule the empire of himself. ' ' 
 
 There are times when the enormity of this vice 
 impresses us almost beyond expression. It is with 
 mingled feelings of pity, pain, and wonder, for in- 
 stance, that we hear, now and then, the aged swear. 
 
 *Prov. viii. 15. 
 2* 
 
o4 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 If men are expected ever to be wise, is it not in old 
 age ? The foolishness which some excuse, but none 
 can justify, by the plea that it is of youth, is crim- 
 inal, indeed, in one whom threescore and ten years, 
 or more, have not made a sage in thought, judg- 
 ment, and character. Lacking the wisdom which 
 presses into service every moment of time in prep- 
 aration for eternity, how totally insensible to the 
 worth of his immortal soul must that man be, who, 
 though there remain to him comparatively but few 
 more days of his natural term of life, and through 
 whose attenuated body there creeps at times the 
 very chill of the grave, yet can coolly and unblush- 
 ingly repeat, time and again, the sin which more 
 than all others incurs the wrath of the Almighty ! 
 There cannot appear to heaven or earth a spectacle 
 more melancholy than that of an aged person, in 
 whom we expect to see the dignity of man most 
 strikingly exemplified, impulsively attempting to 
 strengthen his failing voice, and emphasize his bro- 
 ken: articulation, in acts of blasphemous utterance. 
 Sympathizing with the tremor which the feebleness 
 of age occasions in his frame, the trembling of his 
 tongue seems like the quivering of the bell of some 
 stately ship which, after a long and tedious voyage, 
 marked by many a hair-breadth escape from de- 
 struction, and with the home-harbor in full view, 
 madly plunges at last into the angry sea, to be over- 
 whelmed forever. 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 35 
 
 No mantle of charity can hide such a portrait of 
 human guilt ; its repulsiveness will appear in spite 
 of the soft extenuations, or well-meant apologies, 
 which may be pleaded for it. Oh, it is sad — very 
 sad, thus to hear foul, blasphemous words, such as 
 might be found in the vocabularies of the lost, from 
 the lips of one who, in the leisure, loneliness and 
 privacy of this life's last days, ought to be heard 
 humming the idyls of the saved. Natural, and, 
 under more encouraging circumstances, very proper 
 and becoming, as may be his wish for respect from 
 younger persons, because he is old, yet since he 
 denies it to himself, it is but little that he can rea- 
 sonably expect from others. We are ready to bend 
 before virtuous old age. It is "a mild but potent 
 magistracy" which it exercises upon our person and 
 presence. A good old man need not hint that rev- 
 erence is due to him — his grey hair commands it. 
 But it is only the most formal regard — a regard not 
 unmixed with a feeling of aversion — that Ave can 
 accord to a feeble, tottering old man, who can dar- 
 ingly attempt to straighten himself, and unblush- 
 ingly use his stammering tongue, in acts of blas- 
 phemy against his Maker. 
 
 ' ' If angels weep, it is at such a sight. ' ' 
 
 Nor is it less painful to hear the verbiage of pro- 
 fanity from the lips of childhood. Many, very 
 many children and youths of our land are given to 
 
36 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 this dangerous vice. And this, in face of the many 
 Christian agencies by which it is intended and ex- 
 pected that they shall be made good and true men 
 and women. Everywhere Sunday-schools open 
 wide their doors to " gather them in," while volun- 
 tary bands of devoted teachers try to educate them 
 in the fear of the Lord ; and yet there is scarcely a 
 village or hamlet in the land where His name is not 
 profaned even by many Sunday-school children. 
 This fact proves, not the inefficiency of Sunday- 
 school work, since its grand results, in general, are 
 too well known to be denied, but that it cannot 
 secure its end unless the mind of the young is first 
 deeply and thoroughly imbued with a clear practi- 
 cal sense of reverence for the Supreme Being. This 
 truth is fundamental to all successful religious edu- 
 cation and discipline. One of the first things that a 
 child should be taught, who is just beginning to 
 study his catechism, is veneration for his Maker. 
 
 It is shocking to hear a child sivear. Repeated 
 until the act becomes habitual, there will be needed 
 no inspired seer to prophesy for him a life of in- 
 famy and shame — his easily-learned oaths are an 
 earnest of the corrupt fruit he shall bring forth in 
 mature life. All the tendencies and aptitudes of 
 his bad language pre-advise a career of crime, not 
 less unerringly than the index-board upon the high- 
 way pre-informs the doubtful traveler of the objec- 
 tive point which he is making. Unchecked by his 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 37 
 
 elders, of whom there is none whose authority to 
 stop his beginnings of vice is more unquestionable 
 than that of his own parents, his native inborn incli- 
 nations to evil, gathering strength by indulgence, 
 may acquire such momentum that nothing less than 
 a miracle of' grace could arrest and prevent him from 
 falling into perdition. 
 
 The fact alone of the imperishableness of impres- 
 sions acquired in childhood, or of lessons then 
 learned, ought to be important enough to put all 
 persons who have the care of children, on their 
 guard against allowing them to use any word that 
 might occasion a blush, or is not strictly proper. In 
 the delirium occasioned by fever, good old men have 
 been heard using such vile and profane language as 
 startled and pained their attendants. But still 
 greater was the surprise of their families when, on 
 recovering from their illness and being told of w T hat 
 they had said, they stated that the expressions they 
 used had been learned in childhood ; that, though 
 they had not spoken a bad word for many years, 
 yet unwittingly they had but proved, in their delir- 
 ious state, that the absolute extinguishment of ideas 
 and words learned in childhood is simply impossi- 
 ble. It is, then, a fearful venture to let a child 
 swear. Their permission of the act who can by any 
 means prevent it is certainly criminal. 
 
 But what can w T e think of a parent — a father — ■ 
 w T ho not only permits, but actually encourages his 
 
38 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 hoy to sivear? We have heard of such moral mon- 
 sters, but were not willing to believe the story of 
 their iniquity, except on evidence which was simply 
 unquestionable. We have heard of fathers who 
 allowed the pet of the household to use profane lan- 
 guage, as illustrating his brightness. And not only 
 this, but they took occasion, now and then, to ex- 
 hibit the pet's "smartness," by prompting him to 
 repeat the guilty words in the hearing of friends 
 who happened in his presence. That the boy had 
 brains, or was " smart," was evident from the fact 
 that he could swear. 
 
 What a fearful pastime, a cruel amusement, for 
 a father to enjoy, laughing gleefully at the oaths 
 which, like other first words of childhood, brokenly 
 fall from the guileless lips of his own boy ! Total, 
 indeed, must be the depravity which promps a par- 
 ent to teach his own little one the monosyllables of 
 iniquity, or to discipline him in the practice of crime. 
 Far more guilty is his conduct than was the prac- 
 tice of the old Indians who flung their offspring into 
 the sea, to sink or swim, as strength or feebleness 
 determined ; the child that stood the test — floating 
 upon the surface — was taken out and cared for as 
 being worthy of life, but the little one that sank to 
 the bottom was left there, as being unfit to live. 
 We pity the Hindoo father who lays down his little 
 one in the track of the ponderous temple of Jugger- 
 naut, to be crushed to a jelly by its slow-moving 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 39 
 
 wheels, or the Hindoo mother who tosses her babe 
 into the Ganges, to be devoured by the monsters 
 which infest the sacred river. Horrible as such 
 acts appear to minds enlightened by the gospel in 
 the knowledge of the only God, and of what con- 
 stitutes His true worship, yet to the ignorant, 
 heathenish father and mother, they are real acts of 
 religious devotion. But of the father in this Chris- 
 tian land, who thus educates his children in vice, 
 who, instead of using his parental authority and in- 
 fluence to curb, uses it more to encourage the evil 
 propensities of his fallen nature — propensities which 
 need no artificial means to strengthen them, but are 
 naturally so headstrong as often to mock the most 
 earnest endeavors to govern them — of the father 
 who takes pains thus to instruct his boy, not in the 
 simple, infantile language of prayer, but in the 
 coarse, criminal phraseology of profanity, we can- 
 not find language severe enough to express our 
 condemnation. The cruelty of such a father is 
 more exquisite than that of a cannibal. The bar- 
 barous instincts of the latter prompt him to slay a 
 child as a sacrifice to his palate ; but the former, 
 who poisons the impressible mind of his little one, 
 just beginning to talk, with the venom of iniquity 
 which cannot but ultimately destroy him if it be 
 not neutralized by divine grace, sacrifices him, 
 body and soul, to the devil. If the test used by 
 the Indian father to determine whether his offspring 
 
40 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 should live or die ought to be applied, in a case 
 like this, there are but few who, considering the 
 enormity of the offence which we have described, 
 would long remain uncertain as to which should be 
 flung into the sea, the cruel father or the innocent 
 child. Nor would such an immersion be adminis- 
 tered without Christian sanction, since the Master 
 himself suggests, not only that it ought to be done, 
 but as well how it may be made total, " But whoso 
 shall offend one of these little ones which believe in 
 me, it w r ere better for him that a mill-stone were 
 hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned 
 in the depth of the sea."* 
 
 But there is another feature of this common vice, 
 of which we have something to say before we close 
 this chapter. It is the utter shamelessness with 
 which it is usually committed. No vice flaunts 
 itself before you with more brazen impudence. The 
 slanderer slyly watches for an open ear, an ear lis- 
 tening for whispers of scandal from mouths whose 
 breath is but the more welcome for its moral offen- 
 siveness. Placing his finger over his lips, and with 
 a significant head-shake, the slanderer enjoins se- 
 crecy as the condition on which he will share w T ith 
 you some choice bit of scandal. The thief is too 
 cunning to steal before witnesses ; if he is dis- 
 covered in his guilty act, it is by the merest acci- 
 
 *Matt. xviii. 6. 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 41 
 
 dent. The lecherous creep along the streets, or 
 steal to their secret haunts, after sunset : daylight 
 is not pleasant to eyes which, even after sundown, 
 watchfully peer around to see whether any one is 
 observing the guilty errand thev are directing. 
 The murderer, shunning the face of others, waits 
 for his victim in some secluded place, or seeks him 
 when alone ; except when ungovernable passion, 
 always blind to surrounding circumstances, precipi- 
 tates the fatal act in the presence of others, it is 
 with studied movements that he anticipates his op- 
 portunity, preferring often to shoot, or stab, or brain 
 his victim, under cover of darkness, or of the dim- 
 ness of a lantern, emitting just light enough to let him 
 discover that there are but two parties who can see 
 his bloody act, himself and the doomed one. Night, 
 too, is the time for the drunkard's revelries, ashamed 
 of which he slinks at day-dawn, into some unfre- 
 quented corner, or climbs some loft, unobservedly 
 to sleep on their ill effects. There is not one of 
 the long, dark category of sins against God or 
 man, which is committed as publicly, boldly, and 
 undauntedly, as profanity. 
 
 If it be not the merit of modesty which other 
 sinners evince, who seek retirement for the indul- 
 gence of their easily-besetting vices, it is, at ail 
 events, such a conscious sense of guiltiness as would 
 make them ashamed to be seen practicing them 
 publicly, or in broad daylight. But your reckless, 
 
42 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 foul-mouthed swearer shows neither the natural 
 modesty which makes a man blush who has not yet 
 become a hardened criminal, if he has thoughtlessly 
 uttered an improper word, nor any other evidence 
 of shame whatever. He affects no politeness ; he 
 seeks no privacy ; he cares for no one's feelings ; 
 he has no respect for God, or man. There is but 
 one besides himself, whom his swearing pleases, and 
 of all known beings there is but one whom it honors 
 — one whose acquaintance, if he but appeared to 
 him to pat him on the back for his shameless im- 
 piety, he w T ould, doubtless, decline to cultivate — the 
 devil. 
 
 Such reader, is the vice of profanity, as we have 
 observed it at home — in our own land. Though it 
 might not be consistent for him to upbraid us for it, 
 yet he would but state a fact which we could not 
 consistently deny, if almost any foreigner should in- 
 form us that we have the reputation abroad of being 
 a profane people. It would not take a tourist from 
 our own country, intent upon ascertaining w r hat 
 other peoples think of us, very long to discover that 
 they do not admire us for our universal propriety of 
 speech. It is related, that some innocent Russians 
 mistook an American traveller for u a clergyman, 
 because he was not heard to swear, all other Amer- 
 icans being supposed to be addicted to the habit." 
 What a shame is this! What a blot upon our 
 national character ! Are we a Christian people ? 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE AT HOME. 43 
 
 We would deserve this distinction were it not so 
 true a faet that profanity is one of our commonest 
 vices. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 
 
 TF the foreigner whom we have supposed, in the 
 -*- foregoing chapter, as making a tour of our coun- 
 try, and as being surprised at the extent to which 
 this vice obtains among our people, were an English- 
 man, on following him homeward, we should soon 
 find that we had not arrived among a people alto- 
 gether innocent of bad language. Common swear- 
 ing is certainly not less, if not more characteristic 
 of Christian(?) England than of America. An at- 
 tempt to ascertain, so accurately that the fairness of 
 the comparison would be unquestionable, which 
 nation exceeds the other in the extent to which the 
 habit obtains among the masses, the intensity of the 
 foul verbiage used, and the shamelessness of the 
 offenders, would hardly subserve any practical pur- 
 pose, while the credit that either nation might claim 
 as being less profane than the other, would scarcely 
 be worth a groat. Strolling along the high-ways 
 and by-ways of her rural districts, and into the 
 lanes, courts, alleys and low places of her cities and 
 boroughs, an American, with open ears as well as 
 eyes, might not discover any appreciable difference 
 in the amount of profanity in England, as compared 
 
 ( 44> 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 45 
 
 with his own country; yet he would soon notice, 
 doubtless, this curious difference in kind, that the 
 average Briton usually " draws his strongest epithets 
 from the language of crime, and his most offensive 
 similes from sewers and filthy objects," while "the 
 American generally apostrophizes his Maker." If 
 there be any difference, then, in their guiltiness, it- 
 follows, that the American is more criminal than 
 the British swearer — a distinction which is cer- 
 tainly not very flattering. 
 
 Since from their press, if they have any, we can 
 usually learn the moral as well as the material 
 status of a people, it would not be libeling the 
 English to reproduce, if Ave had space enough on 
 these pages, their own voluminous and decisive tes- 
 timony as lately published to the world, to the pre- 
 valence of this crime in the mother country. The 
 columns of the Telegraph — a leading metropolitan 
 journal — having been opened to the public, during 
 the summer of 1879, for the ventilation of English 
 manners and habits, were soon filled with such cor- 
 respondence, touching this vice, as could not but 
 convince the warmest admirer of England that, of 
 whatever else she might be an example to less pre- 
 tentious peoples, yet she is not a model of purity of 
 language. From every direction letters accumu- 
 lated under the hands of its editorial corps, depre- 
 cating its general indulgence, and begging that some 
 means more effectual than any that had yet been 
 
46 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 tried might be suggested and adopted to prevent it. 
 A glance at the issues of the Telegraph during the 
 months of July and August of the year above 
 named, would be enough to satisfy the reader that 
 the English mind was deeply agitated on the matter 
 of this shameful indulgence. A single extract from 
 the missive of a correspondent, hailing from London 
 itself — one of the proudest as well as oldest cities 
 of the world — may serve as an illustration of the 
 righteous indignation with which some, at least, of 
 her Majesty's subjects had been observing it: "I 
 would venture to say that there is not a delicate ear 
 that is not daily outraged by the unspeakable blas- 
 phemies and hideous indecencies of London lan- 
 guage, particularly on Sunday, when lounging, loaf- 
 ing, and idling are prevalent : but it says very little 
 for our education and its "refining influence when the 
 charms of nature — the trees, the flowers, and the 
 pleasant calm of the river Thames — cannot check 
 this trick of foul talking which has so grown from 
 bad to worse that ladies are compelled to abandon 
 the river altogether rather than expose themselves 
 to the indignities that are unintentionally forced 
 upon them." 
 
 This language seems to imply that the vice of 
 swearing is confined to the lower classes of English 
 society. Nevertheless, in England as in America, 
 if it is not common to, yet it is not unfrequently 
 practiced as well in high as in low life. A for- 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 47 
 
 cible proof of this fact is afforded by an incident 
 which was told the Boston correspondent of the 
 Hartford Courant, several years since, by the late 
 Senator Sumner. "We were talking," said he, 
 " about the profanity of a very distinguished Amer- 
 ican statesman, not now living. Mr. Sumner, (who 
 never swore himself), said, 'Well, I have never 
 heard him swear severely; but as a rule, nobody 
 swears in my presence. The greatest mortification 
 I ever received in my life, in this way, was when I 
 was at a breakfast abroad with Lord Brougham. 
 We had sat clown at the breakfast table, when some- 
 body brought a newspaper to Lord Brougham. It 
 contained a personal attack upon him. The article 
 was marked, and he read it through. When he 
 had completed it, he began a volley of the most 
 scathing oaths that I ever heard fall from the lips 
 of man. There was no limit to the curses he rained 
 upon the head of the author of this piece. I was 
 shocked and stricken dumb,' said Mr. Summer. 
 'The. only other occupant of the table, except Lord 
 Brougham and myself, was Brougham's mother. 
 She sat at the head, a venerable and courtly lady, 
 with an elegance and grace of manner that I never 
 saw excelled. I dared not look at her for some 
 moments, but when I ventured to turn my eyes in 
 that direction, I found not a muscle of her face was 
 moved. She was as calmly unconscious of what 
 her son was saying as if he w T as talking in Arabic. 
 
48 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 The breeze soon blew over, and we had a very en- 
 joyable breakfast.'"* 
 
 It must be confessed, that there is reason for the 
 satires which, from time to time in their history, 
 have been spoken and written, and even acted " on 
 the boards" — satires on the professed Christianity 
 of such profane countries as England and America. 
 In a work which appeared some sixty or seventy 
 years ago, entitled, " Letters of a Hindoo Rajah" 
 and was subsequently translated into our language 
 by a Miss Hamilton, that swarthy prince and rep- 
 resentative of heathen morality, of an unevangelized 
 country and an unenlightened government, remarks, 
 with all the apparent simplicity of an innocent, un- 
 suspecting stranger, that " the English are a most 
 religious nation, since they so continually call upon 
 the Supreme Being." 
 
 About the year eighteen hundred and fifteen, the 
 profanity of the Anglo-Saxon tongue was actually 
 the subject of theatrical representation, and, too, in 
 a country which is popularly supposed to be crowded 
 with a very heathenish people — China. A tourist, 
 w T ho w r as on a visit to the Celestials, passed some 
 time in Canton. "In the theatrical exhibitions 
 which occurred daily in the streets of that large 
 city," he observed "a Chinese actor" playing the 
 
 * As this story has already been given to the world by 
 the press, there can be no impropriety in reproducing it 
 on these pages. 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 49 
 
 Englishman. And " the prominent feature of the 
 character," as mimicked by him, was "the light 
 or profane use of the name of the Almighty. In 
 short, the Englishman appeared as a mere swearer."* 
 In the periodicals of the day public attention was 
 called to this severe rebuke of a vice which, down 
 to the present day, seems only to have mocked all 
 efforts to correct it. The facts which constituted 
 the staple of the Chinese burlesque were sincerely 
 deplored by thoughtful Englishmen. The play 
 which the wounded tourist witnessed "on the 
 boards" of a heathenish .theatre, illustrated more 
 plainly than satisfactorily the ill repute into which 
 the profanity of his countrymen had brought his 
 beloved England. 
 
 It was a severe sarcasm which one of her own 
 gifted sons, who, if his moral character had but 
 equalled his brilliant genius, would have been no less 
 admired by the Christian than he has ever been by 
 the un-Christian world, once penned, touching the 
 naturalness of this vice to the moral soil of his own 
 country. In his longest poem he depicts one of 
 his heroes whom he calls "a noble fellow," as en- 
 gaged in the thickest of a battle and uttering, at the 
 same instant, the common form of oath which we 
 need not here re-produce ; and then he adds 
 
 * Boston reprint of The Christian Observer, London, 
 1819. Vol. xviii., pp. 77, 78. 
 3 
 
50 THE FOLLY OF PROFANIT1 . 
 
 « # * * * those syllables intense, 
 The nucleus of England's eloquence." 
 
 It is now, we believe, more than a century, since 
 the pure, pious, modest and unassuming poet, Cow- 
 per, commanded the admiration of the entire liter- 
 ary and religious world. It is not the least praise 
 that can be bestowed upon his genius, to remark, 
 that, of " the thoughts that breathe, and words that 
 burn," which it inspired him to present to an appre- 
 ciative public in measures whose rhythm is as pleas- 
 ing as the sentiments to which it responds, not the 
 least welcome — to them, at all events, who value 
 morality as the highest excellence of a people — are 
 the periods in which, with a most trenchant pen, he 
 scores the sins, follies, foibles, and ill-manners of 
 his countrymen. A poet of his intensely religious 
 nature and sensitive temperament could not well fail 
 to excoriate as it deserves a vice for the indulgence 
 of which the moral philosopher is not living who 
 could suggest an excuse so reasonable as to com- 
 mand universal assent. Hence the frequent ironical 
 allusions to profanity in his poems. Graphically 
 picturing the bad habits prevailing in the merry 
 land of his birth, it would not at all lessen our 
 appreciation of his merit, as a poet-historian, to 
 know that he meant to rebuke not only his own but 
 also our people, even at so early a period of our 
 history as 1783, when he w r rote, — 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 51 
 
 " Dire is the frequent curse, and its twin sound 
 The cheek-distending oath, not to be prais'd 
 As ornamental, musical, polite : 
 Like those which modern senators employ, 
 Whose oath is rhet'rick, and who swear for fame!'** 
 
 For manifesting less veneration for the Supreme 
 Being than the unenlightened natives themselves of 
 the far-off land alluded to, Cowper travestied such 
 of his profane countrymen as happened there, in 
 these smooth lines : 
 
 " A Persian, humble servant of the sun, 
 Who, though devout, yet bigotry had none, 
 Hearing a lawyer, grave in his address, 
 With adjurations ev'ry word impress, 
 Suppos'd the man a bishop, or at least, 
 God's name so much upon his lips, a priest ! 
 Bow'cl at the close with all his graceful airs, 
 And begg'd an int'rest in his frequent pray'rs."f 
 
 It is a query which, for the little practical good 
 that would result, it would hardly be worth while 
 to seek for such data as could enable the inquirer . 
 to answer truthfully, whether or not there is more 
 swearing indulged in the English than in any other 
 spoken language. No one holds that it is peculiar 
 to the Anglo-Saxon, while to one not of sufficient 
 polyglot attainments to justify a positive deliver- 
 ance on the subject, we may reasonably deny the 
 ight simply to say, that it is more common to this 
 
 * The Task, Book IV., lines 487-491. 
 f Conversation, lines 67-74. 
 
52 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 than to any other tongue. It may be alleged, that 
 the English is of a more flexible nature than any 
 other known language, and therefore more suscep- 
 tible to such an abuse of the gift of speech as is 
 profanity — a theory which we are not competent 
 either to endorse or to deny, since our philological 
 acquirements do not include a knowledge of the 
 genius, structure, and possibilities of all known 
 languages. Or the theory may be suggested, more 
 jestingly than seriously, that English-m<ro is more 
 depraved than man as known by any other national 
 prefix ; hence the remarkable ease and fluency with 
 which he rolls out blasphemies against his Maker — 
 a suggestion which might be accepted, did not the 
 scriptural doctrine of total depravity, not of a frac- 
 tion, but of the entire race of human kind exist. 
 
 Yarious and more witty, perhaps, than philosoph- 
 ical, as may be the answers given to the query 
 above stated — answers so different as to leave the 
 mind undecided as to which is the true one — yet it 
 is not uncertain that the vile, and it is not too se- 
 vere an adjective to add infernal, art of profanity is 
 known and practiced as well by other as by Eng- 
 lish-speaking peoples. Indeed, if the statements 
 made in the correspondence, before referred to, and 
 by a writer who subscribes himself, u A Wanderer 
 in Many Lands" be true, we whose ears are 
 almost daily assailed with such oaths and blasphe- 
 mies as make us sorry that the English tongue is so 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 53 
 
 flexible as to admit of such an abuse, are as yet 
 comparatively ignorant of the fearful extent to 
 which it is possible for this vice to develop itself in 
 man. u English blasphemy," says he, " can stand 
 no comparison, either for intensity of purpose or 
 ingenuity of diction, with that which streams in 
 uninterrupted flow from the mouths of Italians or 
 Spaniards, Russians or Roumanians. It is notori- 
 ous that Spaniards of both sexes and every social 
 class scarcely pronounce a sentence" without intro- 
 ducing some profane invocation, or expletive. 
 
 To corroborate these facts touching European 
 profanity, the polyglot postillion whom Dickens* 
 happened on in Italy may be summoned as a wit- 
 ness. Angered that he had to wait an hour for his 
 horses, he devoted the interval to swearing, using 
 what seemed like a compendium of the profanity of 
 all modern Europe. He swore " sometimes Chris- 
 tian oaths, sometimes Pagan oaths." Sometimes 
 he swore "a long compound oath," beginning with 
 the language of Christian peoples and merging 
 gradually into Pagan jargon. Having driven for 
 travelers from about all the nations of Europe, 
 and being an apt scholar, to be able thus to epitom- 
 ize their profanity seemed to him to be quite an 
 enviable distinction. 
 
 The vice, however, is not indulged by all people 
 
 * Pictures from Italy. 
 
54 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 on .earth — so far, at least, as it involves the bold, 
 direct, and unblushing abuse of the Divine name. 
 There are several exceptions which deserve special 
 mention. In response to inquiries made of him by 
 the writer, a friend*, whose statements are unques- 
 tionable, since he was "to the manor born," and 
 spent his youth among that grand people, and has 
 always cultivated the deepest interest in them, 
 though now and for many years an American citizen, 
 remarks as follows, concerning the Germans : — 
 "There is 'probably no language in which more 
 fearful imprecations are possible than the German. 
 Its marvellous flexibility, and the consequent ease 
 of combining words, and thus of forging the most 
 terrible sledge-hammer-like maledictions, are truly 
 surprising. Yet it is a fact that the German nation, 
 as such, is not given to profanity. The vulgar use 
 of God's holy name, so painfully prevalent in our 
 land, is not common in the ' Vaterland' Adepts as 
 many of her sons among us have become in that 
 direction, yet this unenviable proficiency is certainly 
 owing to their present surroundings ; they have not 
 learned it at home. There the irreverent use of 
 God's name creates a universal shudder, and fre- 
 quently meets with instant and merited rebuke. 
 A striking illustration of this fact was furnished at 
 a royal banquet of Frederick the Great. This 
 prince had acquired from his French associates the 
 
 *Aug. C. Wedekind, D. D., New York City. 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 5o 
 
 disgraceful and degrading habit of profane swear- 
 ing. On the occasion referred to, when a large 
 atheistic and scoffing element was present, the King 
 was profusely profane. One of his guests was his 
 trusty General Ziethen, who was not only brave in 
 the field, hut also loyal to the King of Heaven. 
 He was deeply grieved at the unldngly behavior of 
 his master. Rising from his seat at the table, and 
 bowing respectfully to the King, he said, in sub- 
 stance, 'Your majesty is aware, that, with due 
 deference to your majesty's will, I have ever ren- 
 dered you such service as I was able to perform. 
 My sword has ever been drawn in defence of your 
 majesty's rights and interests, without a murmur. 
 But I cannot sit quietly by and hear the name of my 
 Lord Christ thus irreverently bandied about at this 
 table. May it please your majesty !' Amid a death- 
 like silence of the company, the brave old veteran 
 took his seat. The King was visibly moved by the 
 heroic conduct of his noble officer, and, taking him 
 afterward into his private apartment, he acknowl- 
 edged his fault, begged the General's pardon, and 
 promised never to wound his feelings thus again. 
 
 "The higher classes of Germans eschew this vice as 
 odious and detestable, whilst the masses, at most, 
 indulge in meaningless phrases expressive of malev- 
 olent wishes, such as i geh zum Schinderf 'dicli soil 
 der Kuchuk holenf and others of like character. 
 Of course, when rage gets the better of reason; 
 
56 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 when Luther's ' Souf-TeufeV gets in, the ' Flug- 
 TeufeV comes out. But these are bacchanalian ex- 
 hibitions — ulcers on the general body of the people. 
 The substantial facts are as above indicated." 
 
 Nor was profanity known in heathenish India till 
 it was introduced by immoral foreigners. In sup- 
 port of this statement is the incident related of that 
 distinguished missionary pioneer, John Scudder, 
 D. D., who did more for that benighted country, as 
 a herald of the gospel, than any other man that 
 ever set foot upon its soil. He had been laboring 
 for the Master some twenty-five years, and for the 
 first time since he had left it, w r as on a visit to his 
 native land. On board the vessel that was bringing 
 him homewards, he heard some one using profane 
 language. It stirred his righteous indignation so 
 deeply, that, approaching the swearer with one of 
 his sons in hand, he thus rebuked him, " This boy 
 was born and brought up in a heathen country and 
 a land of idolatry; but in all his life, he never 
 heard a man blaspheme his Maker until now?* 
 The usual shamelessness of habitual swearers ap- 
 peared in the answer that he received, " We'll teach 
 him, sir! We'll teach him! !" 
 
 As further corroborating the statement that 
 India, as a rule, is not a profane country, we here 
 subjoin, as given to the writer, the testimony of 
 one of the sons* of the distinguished Scudder, 
 
 ~~*Rev. E. C. Scudder, M. D., Upper Red Hook, N. Y. 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 57 
 
 above mentioned, and who, following the example 
 of his now sainted father, was himself a missionary 
 in that large field for twenty-two years. " It is 
 the use of obscene language, in its most hideous and 
 disgusting forms, that is so prevalent in India, and 
 not profanity. The obscenity of the people is 
 of the grossest kind, and unmentionable in its char- 
 acter. Filthy words are on the lips of every man, 
 woman, and child, and the slightest disagreement or 
 provocation calls them forth in the greatest pro- 
 fusion. 
 
 "The Hindoos, in their way, are a very religious 
 people. While they will sometimes call down im- 
 precations upon their gods, when everything does 
 not go on smoothly, and especially when they do 
 not receive favorable replies to their petitions, they 
 are seldom profane in the sense in which we use 
 the term. They will say, for example, ' Make it 
 known, God ! that the crime which my accusers 
 ascribe to me is false; if otherwise, let thy temple 
 go to ruin ; let thy bowels burst ; let thyself be 
 destroyed, and let thy shrine be leveled to the 
 dust!' But they are not as a general thing profane, 
 as are people in this Christian, and in many other 
 lands." 
 
 It is a sad confession, indeed, which the honest 
 inquirer into the facts of the prevalence of this fear- 
 ful vice finds himself compelled to make, that there 
 are heathenish peoples on earth among whom an 
 3* 
 
58 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 irreverent use of the name of the Supreme Being 
 was never known, till it was introduced by foreigners 
 from Christian lands ! In a "History of the 
 Piratical States of Barbary"* published nearly 
 sixty years ago, is stated this remarkable fact: — 
 "Amidst all the vices and enormities of the Alge- 
 rine Turks, some good qualities are observable 
 among them. The most abandoned wretch never 
 presumes to utter the name of God in vain, or add 
 it by way of decoration to his ribaldry. Draughts 
 and chess are their only games, and at these they 
 never play for money, but coffee, sherbet, tobacco, 
 or some such trifle." English and American crews, 
 however, in the progress of a half century's com- 
 mercial intercourse with those "Piratical States," 
 have so schooled them in this vice, that the natives 
 are now as proficient as their foreign teachers. 
 Their unenviable improvement in the easily -learned 
 art of profanity is set forth in the comparison so 
 often made, "he swears like a pirate." 
 
 The aborigines of America never profaned the 
 name of the Great Spirit. This linguistic art be- 
 came known to them through intercourse with the 
 "pale faces." Nor could they swear in their own 
 native dialects even after they had acquired a 
 knowledge of the nature of the vice. It was only 
 in broken English that they made attempts at pro- 
 
 * Referred to in The Pulpit, Yol. First, p. 302, London, 
 
 1824. 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 59 
 
 fanity. Their unwritten vocabularies contained no 
 imprecatory phrases, equal to such as we have 
 heard from Anglicised tongues which, in one move- 
 ment, cursed "the bloody Indian" and boasted of 
 English civilization and enlightenment. Xor in 
 their rudely-written hieroglyphic system of perpet- 
 uating the remembrance of events and circumstances 
 has there ever been discovered, by those who have 
 made Indian characteristics a special study, any 
 curious stroke or mysterious symbol whatever which 
 could be construed as an irreverent representation 
 of, or allusion to, the Great Spirit. Down even to 
 the present day, the small remnants of the once 
 powerful Tuscaroras and Tonawandas, living upon 
 the Indian Reservation in Western Xew York, can- 
 not swear in their native tongue. If any of them 
 find themselves, at times, disposed to swear, they 
 at once press into service their limited knowledge 
 of English.* And, as if the genius of their own 
 language were protesting against the senselessness 
 of the habit, and forbidding them to acquire it, it is 
 a curious circumstance that, when they do thus at- 
 tempt to swear in English, they very frequently 
 reverse the order of the words which constitute the 
 
 * It is said that when they wish to impress in their own 
 dialect an asseveration upon the mind of another, the 
 Shoshone Indians are wont to use this eloquent expres- 
 sion : "The earth hears me. The sun hears me. Shall I 
 lie?" 
 
60 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 most common form of oath that we hear from the 
 profane. As an ear-witness once expressed it to 
 the writer, they u usually swear backwards."* 
 
 Bad, then, as the " red man" is popularly sup- 
 posed to be — treacherous, revengeful, blood-thirsty, 
 cruel — yet, in his native condition, he is not pro- 
 fane — a predicate that we wish were true of human 
 nature, as it develops its various instincts, propensi- 
 ties, and tendencies under the conditions of Christ- 
 
 *The following alleged testimony of Mr. Henry R. 
 Schoolcraft, than whom no better authority could be 
 quoted on their habits, customs, and characteristics, to 
 the absolute freedom of Indian dialects from profane ex- 
 pressions, has been floating about the press recently. A 
 thorough examination, however, of his voluminous works, 
 by the writer, assisted by several interested friends, has 
 failed to discover it. As it seems to present internal evi- 
 dence of its authorship, for the credit of the much-abused 
 "red man" on whom compliments are but seldom be- 
 stowed, we can hardly consent to ignore it, even though 
 we cannot now refer to the volume, chapter, and page, 
 where it may be found : "Many things the Indians may 
 be . accused of, but the practice of swearing they cannot. 
 I have made many inquiries into the state of their vocabu- 
 lary, and nothing is more bitter or reproachful than 
 c match annemoos7i, ' which indicates bad dog. They have 
 terms to indicate cheat, liar, thief, murderer, coward, 
 fool, lazy man, drunkard, babbler ; but I have never 
 heard of an imprecation, or oath. The genius of the lan- 
 guage does not seem to favor the formation of terms used 
 in oaths, or for the purpose of profanity, It is the result 
 of other observation as well as my own to say, that the 
 Indian cannot swear in his own language." 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. 61 
 
 ian civilization. To give oral expression to what- 
 ever propensity to irreverence may exist within him, 
 the wild, untutored, barbarous Indian must borrow,* 
 and stammeringly use, a foreign tongue, while the 
 intelligent, enlightened, civilized "pale faces," who 
 for centuries have been crowding him out of his 
 ancestral "hunting grounds" into such close quart- 
 ers that in seeking game, he can now scarcely get 
 beyond sight of the curling smoke of his own " wig- 
 wam," never realize such a linguistic inconvenience. 
 With the utmost ease they can combine certain 
 words of their natural tongue in dreadful impreca- 
 tions and blasphemies, and vociferate them so 
 shamelessly, that if the innocent Indian — innocent 
 apparently of any natural predisposition to irrever- 
 ence — imagines that they believe in a Great Spirit 
 at all, he cannot but infer from this manner of con- 
 fessing their faith, that they hold Him as of but 
 little practical use to them, save that His name can 
 be so conveniently abused. Here, certainly, is food 
 for reflection. 
 
 Glancing, thus, at the prevalence of this malig- 
 nant vice among so many, glad the while to know 
 
 *A Xew York paper recently reported that a native 
 Oneida Indian, who had been ordained to the Christian 
 ministry, said, in a sermon preached in one of their 
 churches, that he vras " thankful that the Creator did not 
 give the Indian language enough to allow him to be pro- 
 fane without first learning English." 
 
62 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 that it does not obtain among all peoples of this 
 fallen world, the old query suggests itself to our 
 thought with much force, " What is man?" Of his 
 wonderful anatomical structure the formation and 
 location of the hand alone afforded evidence enough 
 to convince Galen of the folly of Atheism ; he rested 
 in the conviction, occasioned by his study of the phe- 
 nomena of his physical nature, that only God could 
 have created man. His noble mental and moral en- 
 dowments, his sublime capacities, so deeply affected 
 Socrates that he felt prompted to call man himself " a 
 little god," an enthusiastic view which voices itself 
 in the impressive rhythm of the poet Young — 
 
 " Think deeply, then, O man, how great thou art ; 
 Pay thyself homage with a trembling heart ; 
 What angels guard, no longer dare neglect, 
 Slighting thyself, affront not God's respect." 
 
 But such is the malevolence that his fallen nature 
 evinces — a malevolence which, though it often ex- 
 quisitely exhibits itself in a thousand other forms, 
 yet. finds no more irrational, desperate and insulting 
 expression than in the oaths and blasphemies with 
 which, unblushingly facing his Maker, he invokes 
 His "damnation," either upon himself or upon his 
 fellow men, oY upon one or another of His crea- 
 tures — that the predicate of "man" which is 
 ascribed to Erasmus, as its author — " a little devil," 
 — ought not to be accepted as a mere rhetorical 
 figure. That it expresses what, at least nearly, 
 
PREVALENCE OF THE VICE ABROAD. b3 
 
 approaches a fact, is not doubtful, since Scripture 
 itself mentions one of the chief elements of the 
 character of such a depraved personage as being 
 "enmity against God." 
 
 It is with a deep feeling of shame that we are com- 
 pelled thus to indite periods which are anything but 
 flattering to man. Now and then enthusiastic pens, 
 skipping over the forbidding aspects of his nature, 
 magnify him as their subject. We heartily wish 
 that, when they have exalted him to the height of 
 admiration to which his superior powers entitle him, 
 — a glorification not forbidden but rather encour- 
 aged, here and there, by revelation — we could 
 utter the words which an old philosopher was wont 
 to say when something read to him seemed to chal- 
 lenge a little examination — "there, stop there!" 
 We would feel flattered, indeed — if such exaltation 
 of man comprised the whole truth concerning him. 
 But it is the teaching of our own observation, as 
 well as of Scripture, that, if he is not what Erasmus 
 called him, "a little devil," neither is he, nor can 
 he ever become, an angel, so long as he indulges 
 the sin which, more than all others, tends both to 
 assimilate him into .the likeness of the one fallen, 
 and to the effacement from his moral image of what- 
 ever resemblance he bears to the other heavenly 
 being. There is none who has made him a study 
 but will agree with Pascal, that " man is the glory 
 and scandal of the universe." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE USELESSNESS OF PROFANITY. 
 
 /^vF what practical use is the habit of swearing? 
 ^-^ If the imprecations of the profane were no 
 sooner spoken than answered, it might serve their 
 w T icked purpose, if they really intend anything, to 
 utter them. Nevertheless, if he knew that the 
 curse would be executed at the instant of its utter- 
 ance, where is the indurated wretch who would 
 dare to ask his Maker to "damn" himself or oth- 
 ers? Who does not shrink with horror at the 
 thought of the terrible issues, did the Almighty not 
 only hear but immedktely respond to the invoca- 
 tions for His vengeance which are daily ascending 
 to Him from the open throats and impious tongues 
 of earth's myriads of swearers ? If, when calling 
 upon Him, whether earnestly in a fit of passion or 
 jestingly in a merry moment it matters not, " to 
 sentence," either himself, or some other self, " to 
 eternal torments in a future state," which is the 
 meaning of the word "damn," the swearer, at the 
 same moment, could see his petition answered, what 
 a fearfully practical use would this be of his irra- 
 tional habit ! 
 
 To the end that the folly of such imprecations 
 (64) 
 
THE USELESSNESS OF PROFANITY. 65 
 
 may appear in all its startling magnitude, and with 
 the prayer that the guilty may hereby become fear- 
 ful of their own damnation, and be prompted anx- 
 iously to cry out, "What must I do to be saved?" 
 let us suppose the Almighty as being willing to 
 answer them as soon as uttered ; so far, at least, 
 as present, visible destruction can illustrate the 
 sense of the word "damn." As involved in this 
 supposition we will suggest to the swearer, that he 
 need not consider the condition of faith, on the ob- 
 servance of which depend so largely God's responses 
 to human prayers ; we will conceive for a moment, 
 that He has waived this requirement in his case, or 
 that He will condescendingly accede to his desire 
 for vengeance upon himself or his fellowmen, with- 
 out faith, on his part, in order to its fulfilment. 
 We know that this supposition is not in accordance 
 with the divine economy; but the reader need 
 hardly be told that the truth of things often ap- 
 pears very vividly by looking at them on opposite 
 sides. 
 
 Now, then, what would be the issues ? By some 
 trivial offence some one angers the swearer; in his 
 usual violent swaggering manner he calls upon his 
 Maker to "damn" him; and scarcely has the im- 
 precation fallen from his lips before the offender 
 drops down before him, a corpse — "damned" as 
 the swearer angrily asked that he should be, and to 
 present appearance, to all eternity ! Two men are 
 
66 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 quarreling ; bitter word3 are hurled at each other as 
 barbed shafts, intended to wound each other to the 
 quick. It is not long before the Almighty is in- 
 voked to help settle the quarrel ; but scarcely has 
 each heard the other's curse invoked from heaven 
 before both fall lifeless upon the floor — " damned" 
 in accordance with each other's imprecations, and, 
 so far as the frightened lookers-on can discover, to 
 all eternity ! ! 
 
 As men thus daringly invoke the divine wrath, 
 not only upon each other, but as well upon the 
 brute creation, suppose the swearer, for some slight 
 inconvenience the beast occasions him, asks the 
 Almighty to curse his horse ; instantly he drops in 
 his stall, or in his harness out upon the highway, a 
 carcass — "damned" as the swearer prayed he 
 should be, so far as a brute can realize what that 
 means ; unless, imagining it has a soul, the hell of 
 the invisible world is intended as well for vicious 
 brutes as for vicious human creatures. 
 
 As not only upon themselves or each other and 
 upon brute creatures men impiously imprecate the 
 divine wrath, but even upon soulless, inanimate things, 
 extremely silly as is the act viewed in this connec- 
 tion, suppose the swearer, in his impatience that the 
 work he is doing is not moving on smoothly, or is 
 hindered by such unanticipated jars as every one 
 experiences now and then in his daily routine of 
 duties, or that the object he is handling does not 
 
THE USELESSNESS OE PROFANITY. 67 
 
 suit him, or disappoints him, asks his Maker to 
 curse it : instantly that work disarranges itself, or 
 that object, which may have cost him much time and 
 labor, and would cost much more to re-produce it, 
 falls to pieces — shatters itself into fragments ; or, it 
 takes fire and consumes itself — it is utterly de- 
 stroyed — the only conceivable way in which such a 
 material thing could, as the swearer wished it might, 
 be "damned" If the Almighty thus answered 
 the imprecations of the profane, whenever they 
 offered them, and upon whomsoever or whatsoever 
 they might elect to destruction, horrible as is the 
 thought that any one could be malicious enough to 
 swear, yet there would attach to the act the merit, 
 if an infamous thing can be, at the same time, at all 
 meritorious, that it is of practical use. 
 
 " But this is mere word-painting — a mere fancy- 
 sketch. There is nothing like it in the experience 
 of the profane. It is, therefore, of no importance 
 as an argument against profanity." Who should 
 be more thankful that it is fiction, and not fact, than 
 the swearer himself? With no intention to reason 
 him out of his vile habit from fictitious premises, 
 or by mere speculative statements, yet the writer 
 respectfully submits to his serious thought, that, if 
 his frequent oaths and imprecations mean anything 
 at all, they mean even more than is above suggested 
 and illustrated. The above-given hypothesis lim- 
 its the " damnation" which he invokes, "to present 
 
68 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 appearance," or to as much of it as can now be 
 seen. A full explanation of his fearful execrations 
 would include what is not, and can not now be 
 visible to the eye — the "damnation" of the soul, 
 as invoked upon a human being, in that place or 
 condition of inconceivable horrors, somewhere in 
 the universe, which, in the terminology of Scripture, 
 is "hell!" If, gravitating thither, as inevitably he 
 must gravitate, so long as his profanity allies him 
 with the enemies of God, he finds himself there 
 at last, will it diminish his anguish in any appre- 
 ciable degree, to know that he reached his destiny 
 through God's response to his own wishes? Or, 
 would it lessen at all his remorse merely to suspect, 
 if not to know, that there might be others there in 
 answer to his profane desire that they should be 
 "damned?" Impossible as these ideas may appear 
 to the swearer, yet it may somewhat moderate his 
 incredulity to state the startling fact that "Jesus, 
 the Son of the most high God," on a certain occa- 
 sion,, no sooner heard than He answered the prayer 
 of devils, and in His answer was involved the de- 
 struction of " a great heard of swine." * 
 
 In thus uttering profane maledictions, the swearer 
 is supposed to do it either jestingly or sincerely, 
 — "in fun" or "in earnest." In either case it is 
 a fearful habit. Is it not a shocking act,— a 
 
 *Matt. viii. 28-34 ; Mark v. 11-16 ; Luke viii. 27-33. 
 
THE USELESSXESS OF PROFANITY. 69 
 
 rational, intelligent man invoking the wrath of the 
 Almighty, either upon himself or upon others, 
 merely "in fun?" If he means what he asks, or 
 is " in earnest," perhaps the world would be bene- 
 fited, if He answered, so far as it involved him- 
 self — the petitioner — as well as heard such a 
 prayer. If he is " in fun," or does not mean what 
 he asks, that God should consign him to the tor- 
 ments of hell — to the cruel mercies of the devil; 
 that he should precipitate him into "the lake which 
 burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the 
 second death, "* then he is but mocking the Al- 
 mighty — calling upon Him when he neither desires 
 nor expects Him to hear, or asking Him for what 
 he does not want. What an amusement is this, 
 making his Maker a party to his "fun" for a 
 sane man to enjoy! What exquisite malevolence 
 it exhibits towards his fellow-sinners, for a man, 
 if he is not acting a joke, to ask God to "damn" 
 those whom His only Son died upon the cross to 
 save ! And what an insult it must be to Him, to be 
 asked by the very one — the guilty sinner — for whose 
 salvation he instituted the grand scheme of redemp- 
 
 * Rev. xxi. 8. If the scriptural tropes which so vividly 
 represent "hell" are exaggerative, then we are deceived 
 by revelation. If they teach, or imply, more than is true, 
 our faith in the integrity of the Bible cannot but be weak- 
 ened. It is wiser, safer, and more in accordance with the 
 general tenor of revealed truth, to accept them as depict- 
 ing rather less than more than what "hell" really is. 
 
70 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 tion, to let that sacrifice of His own dear Son, so 
 far as he himself or a few others are concerned, 
 fail to accomplish its end ! 
 
 But more : is the habit of swearing of any orna- 
 mental use ? And if so, what does it ornament ? 
 Certainly not intellect. If the complexion of one's 
 mind is reflected by his repeated outer acts, no less 
 than his face, fair or foul, answers to itself from a 
 mirror before it, how ugly must be the features of 
 his inner self who is ever using his tongue as a 
 pencil dipped in slime, to disfigure it ! Like a fin- 
 ished demon, artistically essaying to destroy Ra- 
 phael's peerless portraiture of the Redeemer, by 
 translating His expression of supernal love into a 
 dark and repulsive aspect of infernal hatred, your 
 cool, deliberate, shameless swearer, with less artis- 
 tic genius and scarcely less wickedness, by every 
 oath or irreverent expression he utters, not only 
 defaces God's beautiful moral image impressed 
 upon his immaterial soul, but actually translates it 
 into the likeness of His arch-enemy — the devil. 
 None can thus habitually sin without inflicting upon 
 himself the most lamentable of all self-inflicted in- 
 juries, moral deformity. Originally beautiful, en- 
 dowed with capacities and excellencies which bespeak 
 its source no less clearly than the light that ema- 
 nates from the sun, yet sin — and none is more malef- 
 icent than profanity — may so deform the soul, that 
 its Creator Himself shall ultimately disown it ; the 
 
THE USELESSNESS OF PROFANITY. 71 
 
 Infinite One shall turn away from it with loathing ; 
 there shall be no beauty in it that He should de- 
 sire it. 
 
 The sentiment is as true as it is beautiful which 
 we have somewhere happened on, that "it is a self- 
 recording world we live in. Things beautiful leave 
 behind them marks of their own kind and nature." 
 A star shoots across the horizon and is apparently 
 gone forever ; but it is not annihilated — it unreels 
 its silvery thread at once across the heavens and 
 your memory, reader ! — you see it as we write of 
 it. u The rolling rock marks its own descent from 
 top to base of the mountain. The sweeping river 
 traces its own course through the sands." The 
 fern leaf stereotypes its own delicate fibrous sys- 
 tem upon the fossil coal. Nature's wonderful 
 " stone book " is full of such strange records. " In 
 the red sandstone there are found, in. some places, 
 marks which are clearly the impressions of showers 
 of rain ; and these so perfect, that it can even be 
 detected in which direction the shower inclined, and 
 from what quarter it proceeded ; and this ages ago." 
 It is remarkable that, especially of her destructive 
 operations, Nature never fails to observe this office 
 of recording results. From its track of devastation 
 you learn the direction and power of the hurricane. 
 The wrecks of many vessels are scattered along 
 the beach — a storm has raged upon the sea. A 
 naked, leafless, scarred tree stands before you — the 
 
72 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 lightning has been quivering among its branches, 
 and down its torn trunk. 
 
 If the natural world thus records its own opera- 
 tions and results, so, too, the moral world, of whose 
 impulses or movements in his inner self every one 
 is conscious. What in man is good, beautiful, and 
 true, if carefully nurtured, shall leave its impress 
 upon the soul so distinctly, that it will come to shine 
 ultimately through his very countenance. And 
 what is vile and repulsive — the evil that is in him — 
 if left to its own addiction, shall as deeply, though 
 oppositely, affect him. The thoughts that pass 
 through his mind, the emotions by which he is 
 swayed, shall record themselves in the very lines of 
 his face. Illustrative of this truth is the striking 
 incident related of an artist. Ambitious to draw 
 the portrait of Innocence, he sketched on his can- 
 vass a beautiful boy, in whom the depraved in- 
 stincts of human nature had not yet been developed : 
 And a lovely face it was that looked out from his 
 easel. Years after he had finished this essay, he 
 wished to sketch another — its counterpiece, Guilt. 
 And where should he look for a model, but in a 
 prison ? He searched it for one whose face might 
 serve him as a picture of guilt. Finding one whose 
 every feature had been made repulsive by a life of 
 crime, he painted his likeness. But what was his 
 astonishment, on finishing his essay, to learn that 
 that very criminal had stood before him years ago. 
 
THE USELESSXESS OF PROFANITY. 73 
 
 when a guileless child, to serve him as a model of 
 " Innocence!" " Vice had left its deforming marks 
 behind it, and had transformed the beautiful boy 
 into a monster." 
 
 Nor does profanity ever set off the dignity of 
 manhood. He who lets himself down to the indul- 
 gence of the most vulgar of all human vices lacks 
 the first element of manliness, self-respect. And if 
 he has no respect for himself, how can he expect it 
 from others ? 
 
 To this deep sense of self-respect which a man 
 cannot ignore without imperiling his good name and 
 sacrificing the dignity of his nature, there is allied 
 the power of self-control. The true man will do no 
 mean thing — nothing that will lessen the esteem of 
 those who know him, and find pleasure in his 
 acquaintance. The majesty of his manhood is his 
 royal reason for not countenancing a dishonorable 
 act — a reason which grows the stronger the more 
 he thoughtfully considers the revealed truth, that in 
 the scale of being his is a rank but one round lower 
 than that of angels ; and still stronger, as, following 
 the gravitation of his thought, it leads him to find 
 no less his own than their origin in the Supreme of 
 all beings. Cultivating a sense of the grandeur of 
 his nature, which is as much a duty to one who 
 would scripturally appreciate himself as is the self- 
 examination which presents to his thought all the 
 evil there is in him, he will allow no vice which he 
 4 
 
74 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 can conquer to lead him as a captive, or to tarnish 
 the glory of his manhood. It is such rigid self-con- 
 trol that makes noblemen. Though a man boasts of 
 high birth, even of royal lineage, and may expect, 
 therefore, the deference of the plebeian masses, yet 
 without the nobility of character which can result 
 only from such uncompromising self-discipline, he 
 has only the semblance of man-like-ness. Blood 
 counts nothing here. 
 
 " Thrice noble is the man who of himself is king !"* 
 
 Nor is profanity a scholarly accomplishment. 
 The learned, as a rule, are not given to this vice. 
 It is generally accepted as proof of an empty head 
 as well as of a bad heart. The Sunday-school 
 Times, commenting recently on an advertisement of 
 a New York bird-fancier who offered to the public 
 the opportunity of buying some " swearing parrots," 
 says, "Indeed, we are inclined to think that most of 
 the profanity in the world comes from swearing 
 parrots — from boys and men who do not swear 
 because they really think swearing a commendable 
 form of speech, or an aid to eloquence, or a pleas- 
 ure to society, but who use profane language merely 
 because they have heard others use it, and have 
 had just brains enough to imitate other people's 
 vices." Says one of our gravest and most dignified 
 periodicals,! " If we observe such persons (swearers) 
 
 * Phineas Fletcher. 
 
 f The North American Review. 
 
THE USELES3XES8 OF PROFANITY. 75 
 
 closely, we shall generally find that the fierceness 
 of their profanity is in inverse ratio to the affluence 
 of their ideas. We venture to affirm that the pro- 
 fanes t men within the circle of your knowledge are 
 all afflicted with a chronic weakness of intellect. 
 The utterance of an oath, though it may prevent a 
 vacuum in sound, is no indication of sense. It re- 
 quires no genius to swear. The reckless taking of 
 sacred names in vain is as little characteristic of 
 true independence of thought as it is of high moral 
 culture. In this breathing and beautiful world, 
 filled, as it were, with the presence of Deity, and 
 fragrant with incense from its thousand altars of 
 praise, it would be no servility should we catch the 
 spirit of reverent worshippers, and illustrate in our- 
 selves the sentiment, that 
 
 " 'The Christian is the highest style of man.' " 
 
 In this utilitarian age — an age in which only 
 what promises pecuniary results is supposed to be 
 worth consideration — a feeling which betrays itself 
 in the slang query, so often asked "on 'Change" 
 and in the marts of trade, " will it pay ?" it is to 
 the point to ask, is profanity of any commercial, or 
 business use whatever? To the habits of industry 
 and honesty, in business life, there attaches a real 
 value. A young man of such habits need never be 
 without a clerkship, if he wishes to become a mer- 
 chant. And once in a "position" he is not often 
 
76 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 on the wing for a more lucrative place. His em- 
 ployer cannot spare him. His good habits have 
 made him indispensable. He is worth to his em- 
 ployer all the salary he receives, and more. But 
 what value attaches to the habit of common swear- 
 ing ? Does it faciliate the mental and manual labor 
 of intricate book-keeping ? Is it any help at all to 
 a man's business ? Does it ever increase " patron- 
 age ?" Does it ever strengthen one's credit at the 
 bank ? Does it ever deepen the confidence of the 
 community in a man's business integrity ? 
 
 If the sw r earer be a merchant, his profanity is no 
 recommendation either of himself or his goods. On 
 calling at his counters to "trade" with him, if he 
 blurted out some wicked expletive, or only a word 
 w r hich, though not really profane, was yet unbecom- 
 ing a gentleman, would you not resent the affront ? 
 Would you, or any of your friends, thus insulted, 
 "call again" at his store to "trade" with him? 
 Of what use to a merchant is swearing ? 
 
 Or, if the swearer be a physician, does his pro- 
 fanity add a whit to the efficacy of his prescrip- 
 tions ? Does it increase the faith of the people in 
 his medical skill, to have it known and whispered 
 among them, that he swears ? Do his patients get 
 better the sooner ? Does it aid him in forming a 
 correct diagnosis of the diseases w T hich rack their 
 persons and poison the springs of life ? Of what 
 use to a physician is swearing ? 
 
THE USELESSNESS OF PROFANITY. 77 
 
 Or, if the swearer be a boss mechanic, or fore- 
 man of some factory, or the head of a gang of 
 laborers, will the oaths that he rips out now and 
 then at his men, make them more active and effi- 
 cient ? Can curses sharpen the wits of an obtuse 
 workman? Driven by the lash of a profane tongue 
 — a lash whose sting is more painful than that of a 
 scorpion, since it reaches and rankles in the soul — 
 will such a dull, indifferent workman cheerfully 
 spring to his task, with a stronger determination to 
 learn how to do it, and to do as much as is expected 
 of him? The " boss " who thus abuses his men 
 betrays his unfitness for his position. He may 
 know how and how much of the work in hand ought 
 to be done, but he knows not how to govern men, 
 which is always requisite to successful management. 
 Where is the " foreman," or '• superintendent," or 
 "boss," who can prove that profanity is a neces- 
 sary auxiliary to the production of a large amount 
 of goods or work ? Of what use to workmen of any 
 class is swearing ? 
 
 Or, if the swearer be a lawyer, does his profanity 
 enlarge his practice ? Does it attract paying clients 
 to his office ? Is it any help to him in analyzing 
 the " cases " submitted to his hands ? In what pos- 
 sible wav can profanity be of use to a lawyer? 
 
 Here, reader, let us pause and lament the fact, 
 which is as humiliating as it is true, that some of 
 our most eminent lawyers — -jurists of national repu- 
 
78 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 tation — distinguished "counselors," than whom 
 none can entertain a profounder appreciation of the 
 authority, dignity, and importance of law ; and even 
 some who wear the ermine — the emblem of purity, 
 the symbol of a dignity scarcely equalled on earth 
 — who, on " the bench/' most gravely 
 
 "from tli' apparent What conclude the Why, 
 Infer the motive from the deed, and show 
 That what we did was what we meant to do," 
 
 are guilty of this more serious transgression of di- 
 vine than of human law. That men whose enno- 
 bling office it is to interpret, enunciate, and apply 
 to the wants and exigencies of society, the eternal 
 principles of justice — "the greatest interest of man 
 on earth, 9 ' says Webster — should be at least 
 patterns of propriety, if not models of almost every 
 human excellence, is an expectation which, in all 
 candor, they themselves must admit is reasonable. 
 Their profanity betrays a remarkable inconsistency 
 — the inconsistency of advocating by their example 
 what it is the gravely-important business of their 
 life to prevent, viz. the transgression of law — an 
 offence not the less but the more considerable, in 
 that the law transgressed has been enacted, if not 
 by human legislators, yet by their Maker. Guard- 
 ians, as they are, of rights and immunities dear as 
 life itself, and being " the only civil delinquents 
 whose judges must of necessity be chosen from 
 themselves,"* when we observe their wilful infrac- 
 
 *Lacon. 
 
THE USBLBSSNESS OB PROFANITY. 79 
 
 tions of divine law, or of obligations due to the 
 
 Almighty, it is with mingled feelings of pain and 
 wonder that we ask the people whom they serve, 
 
 •• "Who shall guard the guards themselves ? M 
 
 Pitv — oh! what a pity, that men of such com- 
 manding, influential positions — men of such enviable 
 talents, natural and acquired, powers and abilities 
 by the right use of which they might reach almost 
 the rank of angels, should yet choose, by practicing 
 the low vice of common swearing, to identify them- 
 selves with the verv scum of society ! In old 
 Greece or Rome they would have been deified for 
 their mental and physical, without any reference at 
 all to their moral excellencies ; but in this Christian 
 land, where we are taught that goodness is great- 
 ness, irrespective of such accidents as rank, power, 
 and wealth, we must be excused, for the feeling in 
 us is irrepressible, if, on happening in their pres- 
 ence, we treat them merely as illustrious moral 
 lepers. Of what use to the learned and honorable 
 members of the bench, or the bar. is the habit of 
 profanity ? 
 
 Such practical questions as are above suggested, 
 touching the utility, or rather inutility of swearing 
 to certain vocations and professions, might be re- 
 peated so as to include all the pursuits of men. 
 Absurd as they may seem, even to the swearer 
 himself, since he would receive it as an insult to his 
 
80 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 reason if we but hinted that he could soberly give 
 them any other than negative answers, yet our 
 point is gained if he is prompted by them to 
 acknowledge the absurdity of the habit of which he 
 is guilty. It may be stated in general terms, with- 
 out fear of contradiction on the part of any one who 
 is disposed to consider this matter fairly and hon- 
 estly, that there is no department of human activity 
 or of human enjoyment in which any help whatever 
 or practical advantage can be derived 7 directly or 
 indirectly, or in the remotest degree, from the fool- 
 ish and wanton habit of profane swearing. The 
 buffoon may respond to this statement with some 
 spurt of wit. But he need hardly be told, that the 
 maxim of the English skeptic, Lord Shaftesbury, that 
 "ridicule is the test of truth" — a maxim based 
 upon an idea which he discovered, doubtless, in the 
 effusion of a heathen poet* whose inspiration was be- 
 gotten more of wine than of imagined muses — has 
 long since been exploded. If nothing is true that 
 can be laughed at, the maxim itself must be false, 
 since it involves absurdities that can excite no other 
 feeling than that of ridicule. Disposed as swearers 
 frequently are, when taken to task for the vice, to 
 treat it humorously, to tone down the gravity of 
 their offence by some attempt at witty repartee that 
 shall excite the laughter of by-standers, yet they 
 
 * Horace, Book I., Satire X., lines 14-15. 
 
THE USELESSXES3 OF PROFANITY. 81 
 
 should not forget that, if they persist in their pro- 
 fanity, a time is coming when, the tables being 
 turned, " He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh ; 
 the Lord," whose holy name they now so flippantly 
 blaspheme, " shall have them in derision."* A 
 little sober reflection on their part who are wont to 
 treat this aggravating sin so lightly, may result in 
 the conviction that it is not only of no practical use 
 in promoting, but is actually destructive of their 
 best interests in two worlds — the present which they 
 are certain shall end, and the future which the}' are 
 equally certain shall never end. 
 
 Some one has said, more forcibly than elegantly, 
 that " others serve the devil for pay, but cursers 
 and swearers are volunteers who get nothing for 
 
 O CD 
 
 their pay." Quite as forcible and true is the often- 
 quoted language of the distinguished Jonathan Ed- 
 wards, "Some sins are productive of temporary 
 profit or pleasure ; but profaneness is productive of 
 nothing, unless it be shame on earth, and damna- 
 tion in hell. It is the most gratuitous of all kinds 
 of wickedness, a sort of pepper-corn acknowledg- 
 ment of the sovereignty of the devil over those who 
 indulge it." As in old feudal times the tenant of 
 a Scotch landholder waited upon him once a year 
 to offer him ceremoniously a pepper-corn — one of 
 the smallest berries known to the botanist — as a 
 
 *Psa. Li. 4. 
 
 4* 
 
82 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 token of submission to his magisterial rank, so your 
 common swearer offers his very small tribute of 
 profanity to the devil ; with certain distinct differ- 
 ences, however, in favor of the one over against 
 the other; as, for instance, the humble Scotch ten- 
 ant rigidly and honestly observed a mere human law 
 which exacted such a tribute, nor was the tribute 
 itself, though insignificant, dishonorable ; but the 
 shameless swearer violates the divine law which 
 forbids profanity ; and further, the almost enslaved 
 Scotch tenant paid the little tribute but once, while 
 the hide-bound swearer pays his a thousand times 
 a year. 
 
 It was a practical question that a real gentleman 
 once asked of a pretentious one, " What does Satan 
 pay you for swearing?" 
 
 "He don't pay me anything," was his reply. 
 
 "Well, you work cheap," responded his re- 
 prover, "to lay aside the character of a gentleman ; 
 to inflict so much pain on your friends and civil 
 people; to suffer; and, lastly, to risk your own 
 precious soul, and for nothing ! — you certainly do 
 work cheap, very cheap indeed!" Not less cor- 
 rect, though more tersely stated, was another's 
 estimate of the unprofitableness of profanity, who 
 compared the swearer to "a fish that bites at a 
 naked hook." 
 
 How utterly gratuitous and contemptible is this 
 vice, is admirably set forth in the well known fable 
 
THE USELESSNESS OF PROFANITY. 83 
 
 of Beelzebub and his imps. These sallied out one 
 morning as usual to command for the day each his 
 brigade, or division, of the grand army of sinners. 
 One was at the head of the division of murderers ; 
 another led the division of liars ; a third superin- 
 tended the gamblers ; a fourth put himself in front 
 of the lecherous. Each, thus, had his complement 
 of men to look after. The work of the day having 
 been finished, these division commanders met in 
 council at the mouth of a large cave, and fell into 
 a dispute as to who commanded the meanest set of 
 men. The controversy waxed warm, and was con- 
 tinued far into the night. Finding it impossible to 
 reach a decision, they concluded, at length, to sub- 
 mit the . question to the judgment of their com- 
 mander-in-chief. Beelzebub having been summoned 
 and the question stated to him, deliberately said 
 that " swearers where his best subjects ; for while 
 they were the largest division in his employ, yet 
 they cost him nothing. The murderer got some- 
 thing for killing, the thief for stealing, the liar for 
 lying, and the gambler for his sly trickery ; but the 
 swearer was the meanest of all — he served without 
 pay." Fabulous as is this anecdote, yet the swearer, 
 if he looks at his vice on all sides, will hardly deny 
 the fact which it sets forth. 
 
 In his sermon entitled, " The Guilt of Profane- 
 ness" the Rev. Dr. Dwight, discussing this vice 
 in the light of its unprofitableness, says, " In the 
 
84 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 commission of most sins, mankind usually expect, 
 and believe, they shall obtain some natural good; 
 and this is almost always the prime object of their 
 sinful pursuit : good, forbidden indeed, and there- 
 fore unlawful ; yet still really good in the apprehen- 
 sion of the sinner. Thus persons commonly lie, and 
 cheat, for the sake of some gain; become intoxi- 
 cated, on account of the pleasure experienced in the 
 use of strong drink; are gluttons, to enjoy the de- 
 lightful taste of dainty food : and thus in almost all 
 other cases of transgression. 
 
 But in profaneness there seems to be no good, 
 either enjoyed or expected, besides that which is 
 found in the mere love and indulgence of sin. No 
 person ever acquired property, health, reputation, 
 place, power, nor it would seem pleasure, from 
 profaneness. Those particular movements of the 
 tongue which articulate profaneness, produce, so 
 far as I am able to conjecture, no more agreeable 
 sensations than any other. The words, which em- 
 body profane thoughts are neither swoother, nor 
 sweeter, than any other words. If, then, profane- 
 ness were not sinful, such words would be pro- 
 nounced no oftener than any other. The pleasure 
 found in profaneness such as it is, is therefore 
 found, chiefly if not wholly, in the wickedness 
 which it involves, and expresses. The sin is the 
 good ; and not anything peculiar to the manner in 
 which it is committed, nor any thing which the 
 
THE USELESSNESS OF PROFANITY. 85 
 
 profaneness is expected to be the means of acquir- 
 ing."* 
 
 It is the deliberately-expressed judgment even of 
 so amiable a man as the distinguished Dr. Theo- 
 dore Cuyler, that "the man who swears turns 
 speech into a curse, and, before his time, rehearses 
 the dialect of hell. He waits for no bait ; but ' bites 
 at the devil's bare hook.' The shrewd Quaker's ad- 
 vice to the profane youth, i Swear away my young 
 friend, till thee gets all that bad stuff out of thee,' 
 points to the real source of the vice ; for it is out 
 of an evil heart that proceed evil thoughts, false 
 witness and blasphemies." 
 
 It would be superfluous, perhaps, on the part of 
 the writer, to add anything to these strong testi- 
 monies against the wickedness and unprofitableness 
 of this vice. If the swearer who may be pursuaded 
 to read this essay, attempted with an honest desire 
 to do him good, will sit down and calmly review 
 the statements offered in this chapter, respecting the 
 utter uselessness of his vice, we have no fear but 
 that he will accept them as being true, though he 
 may feel disposed to complain of the plainness and 
 directness of the language in which they are 
 clothed. Says the quaint George Herbert, of the 
 influence of whose exemplary piety his own brother 
 once wrote, that " where he lived beneficed, he was 
 little less than sainted" — 
 
 *D wight's Theology, Yol. iii., p. 204. 
 
86 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 u Take not His Name, who made thy mouth, in vain ; 
 It gets thee nothing, and hath no excuse : 
 Lust and wine plead a pleasure ; avarice gain ; 
 But the cheap swearer, through his open sluice, 
 Lets his soul run for naught, as little fearing : 
 Were I an epicure, I could bate swearing."'* 
 
 * The Temple. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 npHE real gentleman never swears. In his man- 
 -^- ual of politeness the vocabulary of slang is laid 
 under an interdict which he cannot ignore without 
 imperiling his reputation. He never offends his 
 friends of either sex, let him meet them where he 
 may, by such language as would scarcely be admir- 
 able even upon the lips of a professional clown ; and 
 as to enemies, he is too courteous, and gentle, and 
 hence watchful, as well of his acts as of his words, 
 to admit of the supposition that he has many, if 
 any at all. In the calmness and deliberateness of 
 his self- equipoise such an one needs no profane ex- 
 plosives to signalize his presence, and awe his com- 
 pany, whether stranger or acquaintance, into re- 
 spectful obeisance. No such moral thunder accom- 
 panies his advent — his address is striking enough 
 without it. The instincts of good breeding prompt 
 him to eschew all forms of vulgarity ; not less when 
 he happens incidentally among those who, though 
 not professionally vulgar, yet make no formal pre- 
 tensions to gentility, than when, without art or any 
 apparent design to please, he gracefully moves 
 about the drawing-rooms of the elite. 
 (87) 
 
88 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 His badge of gentility is not some visible, ex- 
 terior thing — something of mere extrinsic Avorth, — 
 which he can don or doff to suit his own convenience, 
 or his company, though he is never negligent of his 
 outer self. He is always a gentleman ; he is never 
 less than that, since he cannot detach from himself 
 and lay aside the most essential characteristic of 
 rank, a high sense of honor. He might as well try 
 to change his natural identity, so that his nearest 
 friends should not know him, as to attempt to act 
 otherwise than as a gentleman. His gentlemanship 
 is as much a part of his very self as his personal 
 form, — much more, indeed, than his dress-suit which 
 he need not wear every day to command others' 
 admiration, but only on special occasions, and then 
 merely to set off his exterior, and therefore in- 
 ferior self. 
 
 From the lips of one who is thus intrinsically a 
 gentleman, we never hear bad language. His mouth 
 is not adapted to the dialect of the profane, or the 
 foul idioms of the rake. As some cannot sing be- 
 cause their vocal organs are not equal to the art— 
 a natural disability which often occasions them 
 regret — so the true gentleman finds himself un- 
 equal to the pleasure, if such it be, of swearing, — 
 a moral inability which not only never occasions 
 him regret, but is really a matter of self-gratulation, 
 and the more in that it is not natural, but acquired. 
 An attempt, on his part, to utter such irreverent or 
 
THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 89 
 
 indecent phrases as so glibly roll off the tongue of 
 the lewd boor, would be an attempt to act against a 
 fixed habit. In this event, his sense of morality 
 would smite him ; his reason would begin a dispute 
 with him about the unaccustomed act ; his judg- 
 ment would protest against it ; all the moral forces 
 of his nature would bristle up to it, as a sin against 
 himself as well as against his Maker ; so that, if he 
 swore at all, he could not do it very easily or com- 
 fortably. It is no more difficult to acquire, thus, 
 the habit of clean than the habit of unclean speech. 
 His claim to the distinction of a gentleman whom 
 the tailor, the jeweler, and the laundress, — a trio of 
 artists, — make up between them, and finish, so far as 
 their skill and taste can finish him outwardly, is cer- 
 tainly questionable, so long as he lacks the linguistic 
 accomplishment of fitness of speech. His suit is not 
 the only thing that should fit him snugly, or his general 
 " make up "the only thing that should not appear 
 slovenly ; or his carriage along the street the only 
 kind of uprightness that he should cultivate. The 
 hint given by the brilliant wit, who, on some public 
 occasion, was to act the role of Lord Mayor, is suf- 
 ficient to convey our meaning. He could wear very 
 gracefully the paraphernalia of the high office, and 
 make all his movements accord very strictly with 
 its dignity ; but what about his words ? In his 
 assumed hesitancy as to his competency in this 
 respect, the w T it waited upon the Lord Mayor whom 
 
90 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 he was to personate, and facetiously asked, that he 
 would let him take the measure of his lordship' s 
 mouth. Such a measurement of words, as to their 
 fitness to be spoken by them, is just what many 
 men have never made, to whom, otherwise, we 
 might defer as being " gentlemen." They have all 
 the covetable accidents of gentility. Their parents 
 conferred on them the distinction of high birth. 
 They have wealth, and, therefore, first-class friends 
 and acquaintances. Nature, too, has given them a 
 prepossessing presence which, with a fair share of 
 intelligence and wit, guarantees a welcome to any 
 club they may happen on, and many a social circle 
 they may visit. Nev rtheless, artfully as they 
 may, and often do, angle in society for admira- 
 tion, they may rest assured, that for such as is 
 really Avorth the catch they will troll in vain, and 
 for this best of reasons, that they have never taken 
 the measure of a gentleman's mouth. We submit 
 to the cool judgment of the reader, that common 
 swearing is the vice of the vulgar, be the rank 
 what it may that society accords to them. 
 
 Social caste is no criterion of gentility. We have 
 discovered real gentlemen among hod-carriers and 
 coal-heavers; nor have we valued them the less 
 for their uninviting, unattractive outer appearance. 
 Men are to be estimated, not by what is on them, or 
 about them, but by what is in them. The darkness 
 and dirt of the mine detract nothing from the value 
 
THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 91 
 
 of a gem. When will the world learn, that all the 
 royal on earth are not living in palaces, or sitting 
 on thrones and stretching forth jewelled sceptres ? 
 
 To estimate a man by the high rank conferred on 
 him for one reason or another by society, which 
 seldom, if ever, cares to look beneath the surface of 
 things, is a mistake which is pardonable only in one 
 who has not mingled with the world long enough to 
 discover the guises and disguises, the illusions and 
 delusions, the conceits and deceits, under which so 
 many of the so-called "upper classes" are living a 
 brilliant yet false life. But in a thousand other in- 
 stances such a mistake is not venial — instances of 
 persons who have become too intimate with men to 
 ignore the truthfulness of the trite maxim, as applied 
 to them, that "all is not gold that glitters," but 
 who inconsistently and persistently make, the while, 
 as if they understood the old truism to have been 
 intended by its author as a test merely of metals, 
 and not of men. Many who can easily and instantly 
 tell the difference of value between a new brass medal 
 and a genuine sovereign, find it difficult, if not im- 
 possible, to ascertain the real worth of some of their 
 acquaintances in " high life," — a difficulty explained 
 by their own evident over-weaning fondness for 
 brilliant company, their irrepressible ambition to 
 affiliate with such as the French distinguish as the 
 6lite, and, not their ignorance of real differences 
 between them, but their disinclination, fostered by 
 
92 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 their own pride and the elite themselves, to dis- 
 criminate sound moral from empty material, and 
 pretentious social worth. The fact is, that men 
 always have, and we suppose always will — at least 
 till the prophetic millennial period, the world's 
 "golden age" shall have been well ushered in, 
 when, if not infallible for a thousand years, they 
 will certainly be less fallible than they now are, and 
 more competent in every sense to distinguish the 
 true from the false — let their eyes usurp an office 
 which belongs exclusively to that most royal of 
 human attributes, reason. Their eyes have quite 
 too long played the supreme judge, in determining 
 the not-very-difficult problems of merit and demerit 
 which men's lives are ever suggesting — a folly 
 somewhat like, and far more reprehensible than, 
 that of an architect who attempting the erection of 
 a fine building, should refuse to hold the plumb-line 
 to his work, and apply the rule and the square, and 
 trust to a mere glance, now and then, at the rising 
 structure, to determine whether or not it is accu- 
 rately proportionate. 
 
 Circumstances, accidental or of their own inge- 
 nious planning, may, and often do, elevate to high 
 political places men who, either for their real lack 
 of attractive moral qualities or for their apparent 
 indisposition to let them shine on 
 
 ' ' inferior eyes 
 That borrow' their behaviours from the great," 
 
THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 93 
 
 should hardly have the assurance to claim the ap- 
 probation of the Christian public. Our Christian 
 ideal of true worth peremptorily forbids the admira- 
 tion — often fulsome, indeed — which less fortunate, 
 though not less ambitious, aspirants to high offices 
 are so ready to spend on them. Their praise who 
 have learned to distinguish substance from shadow, 
 the real from the unreal, cannot be commanded ; to 
 be enjoyed it must first be deserved, which is not 
 true in instances of men who, ignoring the real 
 majesty of goodness, presume that, independent of 
 any other than purely political considerations, their 
 eminent offices, or positions, entitle them to popular 
 esteem. Formally respectful and loyal to such 
 mistaken claimants for our deeper regards, as being 
 politically our superiors, though they may be as 
 great moral monsters as the tyrant Nero himself, to 
 whom Paul exhorts* the Roman converts to "be 
 subject," yet it does not follow, as a necessary 
 sequence to high social rank, which the world usually 
 identifies with such political distinction, that w T e are 
 to accept, and much less to flatter them as being 
 gentlemen — so long, at all events, as they habitually 
 violate such proprieties as are expected even of the 
 humblest persons who covet the good opinion of 
 their few acquaintances, and practice such immor- 
 alities, one of the grossest of which is profane 
 swearing, as can never command its approbation, 
 
 *Rom. xiii. 1. 
 
94 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 but, instead, the deep aversion of the Christian 
 public. It is but stating a truism to remark here, 
 that genuine worth and high social rank are not 
 synonymous phrases. 
 
 Very tenacious as are the English of class dis- 
 tinctions — more, perhaps, than any other civilized 
 people on earth — yet, be it said to their credit 
 that, as a rule, they are wont to distinguish intrinsic 
 from merit that is simply and only extrinsic. " The 
 people of England," says a popular writer,* "have 
 a remarkably nice feeling in this respect, and even 
 the splendor of the highest rank will seldom mislead 
 them. If a man of the highest birth depart in his 
 conduct, or merely in his manners, from what his 
 situation requires of him, you will soon hear it said, 
 even by persons of the lowest class, " Though a 
 lord, he is not a gentleman." Whether in our own 
 country, where it would probably gratify the aspir- 
 ations of many to attain the dignity supposed to 
 inhere in titled classes, or in any other where such 
 classes are too closely identified with the social 
 organization to justify the expectation that they 
 will ever become extinct, it would be well for those 
 who cannot feel that they are in the presence of 
 gentility unless they are face to face with persons 
 of high social position, to con both the sentiment so 
 well expressed by the Oriental couplet — 
 
 *M. de Stael Holstein's Letters on England. 
 
THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 95 
 
 "A jewel is a jewel still, though lying in the dust, 
 
 And sand is sand, though up to heaven by the tempest 
 thrust," 
 
 and that of the poet Pollok — 
 
 « * * # * Qod no value set, 
 
 That man should none, on goods of worldly kind : 
 
 On transitory, frail, external things, 
 
 Of migratory, ever-changing sort ; 
 
 And further taught, that in the soul alone, 
 
 The thinking, reasonable, willing soul, 
 
 He placed the total excellence of man ; 
 
 And meant him evermore to seek it there." 
 
 By some who occupy eminent positions, yet ap- 
 preciate the moralities of a worthy life less than the 
 flattering address of their fellows, it will very likely 
 be called "cant," thus to strip them of their gen- 
 tlemanship on purely moral grounds. Nevertheless, 
 it is still true that only as they become good can 
 they become "perfect gentlemen." By all in so- 
 ciety who entertain just views of the excellence of 
 such a distinction, it is accepted as an ultimatum 
 for which there is no equivalent, that he who aspires 
 to it must be a man at least of irreproachable mor- 
 ality, if not an avowed godly man. Xor can the 
 mere charge of "cant" prove this widely-accepted 
 sentiment to be fictitious, or untrue. Nothing is 
 proved by a laugh, but that the laugher himself is 
 amused. 
 
 Possibly it may modify their exceptions to these 
 views of true gentlemanly character, who are more 
 
96 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 amused by them than convinced of their correctness, 
 to be told the scriptural truth, that their Maker, this 
 infinitely beneficent Being whom they offend, per- 
 haps daily, by their immoralities, once demonstrated 
 to the world that He held His goodness as consti- 
 tuting His glory. It was a bold — almost an auda- 
 cious petition that Moses once addressed to Him, 
 "I beseech thee, show me thy glory."* It was an 
 extraordinary request. He hardly apprehended the 
 grandeur, nor seemed to fear the issues of a full, 
 unlimited manifestation of what he desired to see. 
 Nevertheless, his remarkable prayer was granted. 
 But it was not an overwhelming display of infinite 
 Power that he was permitted to see ; nor a myste- 
 rious revelation of the divine Omnipresence ; nor 
 some wonderful demonstration of His Omniscience ; 
 nor a special manifestation of any attribute of His 
 being, save that of His Goodness. It should at once 
 and forever end their sneers who flippantly pro- 
 nounce all exhortations to goodness, in order to dig- 
 nity of character, as " nothing but the cant of drivel- 
 ing religionists," to be informed that in response 
 to the entreaty of Moses, " I beseech thee, show me 
 thy glory ! " the only absolutely excellent Being in 
 the universe said, u I will make all my goodness 
 pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of 
 the Lord before thee ; and will be gracious to whom 
 I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom 
 
 * Ex. xxxiii. 18-23. 
 
THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 97 
 
 I will show mercy." We call him "God," and not 
 merely sentimentally admire, but we worship Him, 
 because He is good. If His goodness, as He Him- 
 self has declared, constitutes the chief excellence of 
 His Maker, is it not folly for His creature, man — 
 His best piece of workmanship, the climax of His 
 creative skill — endowed, as he is, with such grand 
 possibilities — to expect dignity or excellence of char- 
 acter, independently of this moral element ? No 
 one can become great without goodness. 
 
 Besides this, so long as it is on record in the New 
 Testament — of which the single scripture* that St. 
 Paul wrote, touching enviable character, if practi- 
 cally observed, will more completely finish a man 
 than all the " Letters of Lord Chesterfield" — that 
 the most perfect Man whom the world ever saw was 
 born in a stable ; that He was the recognized son of 
 a common mechanic ; that He was brought up in 
 the meanest village of Palestine ; that in His man- 
 hood He was so poor that He had " not where to 
 lay His head ;" that He mingled with the vilest of 
 the vile, and was no more sullied by contact with 
 them than the rays of the sun in passing through 
 polluted air ; and that at last the social and ecclesi- 
 
 *Phil. iv. 8. "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are 
 true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are 
 pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are 
 of good report ; if there be any virtue, and if there be any 
 praise, think on these things." 
 5 
 
98 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 astical prejudices of His people, breaking down all 
 the restraints of reason and law, nailed Him to the 
 cross, between two thieves — just so long shall we 
 hoot at the notion which, unsustained either by rea- 
 son or revelation, the world will entertain, that a 
 man's worth is to be rated by his social rank. In 
 the progress of time and the development of truth, 
 there will dawn upon the world an era when moral 
 excellence alone will be the universally-accepted 
 criterion of rank. And in the re-adjustments of 
 caste to which society will then be submitted, none 
 will be more surprised than many of the profane, 
 immoral elite themselves, to find that, as lead in 
 water, they have dropped to the lowest " positions ;" 
 and none will enjoy the social changes more than 
 the morally worthy, who, though now ostracized 
 from circles, fellowships, and associations which 
 would be hallowed, not profaned, by their presence, 
 or are now so often unceremoniously elbowed aside, 
 as not possessing the essential concomitants of gen- 
 tility, will then find themselves lifted up to the 
 highest places. However long it may be, under 
 adverse circumstances, before the fact which natural 
 philosophy teaches us proves itself, yet, at last, 
 u water will find its level." 
 
 Will the reader here let us remark again, that so 
 genuine a man as we have ever held a gentleman to 
 be, will not swear. Whatever may be one's pre- 
 tences to this character, if he himself lacks so much 
 
THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 99 
 
 in reverence, and so much in respect for your rev- 
 erence, for the Supreme Being, that, in your hear- 
 ing, he will rudely, needlessly, and shamelessly 
 sputter out His name, to engage your attention, 
 forsooth, or to give point to some sally of wit, or 
 strength to some weak expression, or brilliance to 
 some common-place sentiment, or emphasis to some 
 unimportant fact, by his transgression thus both of 
 a common rule of propriety and of the law of God, 
 he ceases to be, if he ever was at all, a gentleman, 
 and becomes a criminal, both before the law of the 
 land, which, though it forbids profanity, yet takes 
 no notice of the committed crime, and the divine 
 law, for the infraction of which he will be punished, 
 if not in the present, yet certainly in the future 
 world. " The foolish and wicked practice of profane 
 cursing and swearing," said the accomplished George 
 Washington, "is a vice so mean and low that every 
 person of sense and character detests and despises 
 it." And it is the well-expressed judgment of an- 
 other writer on this subject, that "of all the dark 
 catalogue of sins, there is not one more vile and 
 execrable than profaneness. It commonly does, 
 and loves, to cluster with other sins ; and he who 
 can lookup and insult his Maker to His face, needs 
 but little improvement in guilt to make him a fin- 
 ished devil." 
 
 If, then, it is not gentlemanly, neither is it lady- 
 like to swear. A lady swear! How repulsive to 
 
100 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 all our conceptions of the dignity, gracefulness, and 
 bigh-tonedness of such a character, is the idea that 
 a lady can swear ! We have heard ladies sing in 
 tones that carried us to "the gate ajar," where we 
 have lingered to catch, through the crevice, but an 
 echo of the harmony that is all divine, but we have 
 never heard a lady sivear. 
 
 With other definitions that he gives, the lexi- 
 cographer, Webster, says that this (lady) is " a 
 term of complaisance ; applied to almost any well- 
 dressed woman, but appropriately to one of refined 
 manners and education." There is a great deal of 
 significance in the only word of this definition which 
 Webster, not the writer, has italicised. Unless a 
 woman, addicted to this coarse, vulgar vice, though 
 never so well-dressed, by some original process, for 
 by ordinary methods it is impossible, can demon- 
 strate that profanity is an accomplishment, she can- 
 not "appropriately" be called a "lady." It con- 
 flicts with all our ideas of the softness, amiability, 
 and moral worth of woman, to pay her the polite 
 deference due to her sex, if she so far demeans her- 
 self as to indulge this vice of a foolish tongue. To 
 violate the blushing modesty of her sex and the 
 sensitive reserve with which nature has endowed 
 her, as a safeguard of conduct and character, by 
 boldly and coarsely profaning His name who con- 
 descended to be born of her as the Redeemer of our 
 ruined race, makes the offence in woman seem far 
 
THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 101 
 
 more grievous than as committed by the sterner 
 sex. Though not peculiar to either sex, yet it is 
 certainly more a masculine than a feminine vice ; 
 and, if the profanity of a man who pretends to be a 
 gentleman exposes him to the condemnation of the 
 virtuous, compromises his dignity and lets him down 
 to a level with the vilest characters, much more does 
 the profanity of a woman who claims to be a " lady" 
 degrade her in the eyes of all who admire moral 
 worth more than the tinsel and trappings with 
 which she adorns her person. 
 
 The fact has always been admitted, that the sen- 
 timent of religion is stronger in woman than in man. 
 There is abundant historic evidence to support this 
 fact. Here and there in the New Testament appear 
 such striking instances of the intensity of her re- 
 ligous feeling as ought to convince any one who 
 cavils at this statement, yet is honestly disposed to 
 render " honor to whom honor is due," that St. 
 Peter had reference merely to her physical, and not 
 to her moral constitution, when he spoke of her as 
 being" the weaker vessel."* Our Saviour found 
 enemies among men. Men first opposed His gospel. 
 Men spat upon Him. Men derided Him. Men 
 plaited the crown of thorns and thrust it upon His 
 brow. Men pointed and drove the nails that held 
 Him to the cross. Men raised it aloft and let it 
 down to its place with a thud that sent a quivering 
 
 *1 Pet. iii.7. 
 
102 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 thrill of pain through the whole network of His 
 muscular and nervous system. Men gave Him "vin- 
 egar" to drink. Men pierced His side. Enough — 
 full enough to kill Him, was all this ; yet, if He had 
 not been " already dead," and thus let them have 
 occasion to fulfil, unconsciously, an old prophecy, 
 men would have broken His bones to finish their 
 murderous work. But there is not a single instance 
 on record in which woman wounded Him — not so 
 much as by an unkind word. Coming unto Him of 
 her own accord, without the urging that man's more 
 obstinate nature seems to require, she also stood by 
 Him, even when "all" His "disciples forsook Him, 
 and fled." That any woman, then, should ever ir- 
 reverently use any one of the sacred names, either 
 of the Father of the Son, or of the Son of God 
 himself, to whom in the days of His flesh were thus 
 pledged all the tender and heroic affections of her 
 nature — names by which His blessed person, peer- 
 less character, and infinitely-benevolent mission have 
 become known to our ruined race — is an impiety of 
 which the whole sex should be ashamed. How much 
 more consonant to the religious chords of her nature, 
 that respond so easily to the soft touches of love, is 
 the spirit that breathes so womanly and devotionally 
 through these rhythmical lines — 
 
 ' ' God ! I tremble when on Thee I think ; 
 I feel as if I shuddered on the brink 
 Of profanation — yet I love Thee : read 
 
THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 103 
 
 My doubting, fearing heart — it loves indeed ! 
 Loves, and should fain obey — O, touch the chord 
 That vibrates at Thy name, and tune it, Lord ! 
 To reverence and to virtue : all beside — 
 The vain desires of folly, or of pride — 
 All, all I throw, an offering at Thy feet ; 
 Accept that homage, Being Infinite !"* 
 
 It is difficult to conceive what apology a real gen- 
 tleman, or lady, could offer for using irreverent or 
 vulgar words in social conversation. In cities where 
 it is genteel to frequent theatres, there is a large 
 class of ambitious youths who indulge this habit 
 with a view to dramatic effect. They imagine that 
 they evince no little artistic talent if they can but 
 reproduce in the parlor, with approximate correct- 
 ness, as well the profane and vulgar as the more 
 chaste and beautiful recitations of the stage. They 
 are artists if they can but render certain passages 
 from the wanton pens of dramatic poets nearly or 
 quite as well as some immoral "star" actor. Fas- 
 cinated by the brilliancy of his elocution, they are 
 too stage-struck to apprehend that it is more how 
 than what such a masterly tragedian or comedian 
 recites that endangers their morals. The very per- 
 fection that he evinces of dramatic and elocutionary 
 art ensnares them to the use of terms and phrases 
 which, without the encouragement of the stage, or 
 as heard from the lips of persons of no social status, 
 they would never think of repeating. It is one of 
 
 *Sir John Bowring. 
 
104 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 the vainest, emptiest ambitions that a youth can cul- 
 tivate — a youth who is expecting to occupy a promi- 
 nent position in society — to take advantage of every 
 occasion that offers, to exhibit his deep appreciation 
 of, and imagined improvement in, what is so tak- 
 ingly called "the histrionic art." And a coterie 
 of such "society people," meeting in some parlor, 
 not with the view of enjoying an evening's easy, 
 natural, and unrestrained intercourse with each 
 other, but to "play the actor" — enacting the role 
 of the tragedian or comedian, mimicking his vocal 
 tones, his tender or bold inflections, his gesticula- 
 tions, and interjecting the while between them what- 
 ever indelicate phrases and profane expletives be- 
 long to "the cast," constitutes "a scene" at which 
 even the professional stager would laugh if he could 
 see it. If a Forrest, or Booth, took the part of 
 eavesdropper on such an occasion, he would hardly 
 feel complimented by such a travesty on his profes- 
 sion. 
 
 There is no truer exponent of the refinement of 
 thought and feeling, without which mere pretences 
 to gentility are as easily distinguishable from the 
 real thing as the plated from the solid ware, glisten- 
 ing in the cases of the jeweler, than purity of 
 speech. No man of culture will accept any other 
 accomplishment as an equivalent for it. Clean lan- 
 guage is no less a component of his finish, and is 
 always far more handy for immediate use, than clean 
 
THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 105 
 
 linen. He may be as polite and graceful in his 
 address as a French dancing-master, yet, if a man 
 is less master of his tongue — the most wanton and 
 least tractable member of his person — than of his 
 arms and legs, he is still short of that proficiency in 
 decorum which is instantly suggested by, and is the 
 popular meaning of the much-abused name, " gentle- 
 man." It is easier to arrogate this title than by 
 rigid self-discipline to earn it — such discipline as 
 affects more the condition of the inner than the con- 
 ventional movements of the outer man. Whether 
 or not your friend or acquaintance has fairly earned 
 it, is a query which need not long perplex you. If 
 you have been feeling uncertain that he wears it 
 deservedly or desertlessly, all that you need do, to 
 be relieved of your doubt, is to talk familiarly with 
 him as you meet him now and then. At the same 
 time, if he is just as anxious to know your real 
 character, it is alike his right and privilege to do 
 the same thing, though, in order to effectiveness, 
 each should conceal from the other, for the time 
 being, the not unworthy end contemplated by the 
 inquisitorial intercourse. 
 
 For natural and spontaneous conversation is a 
 key which either one engaged in it unconsciously 
 puts in the other's hand, to let him into the secretest 
 recesses of his soul — a key which is only the better 
 for being invisible, since, when either uses it in the 
 other's presence, he can do so without detection. 
 
106 THE FOLLY OF PROFANIT1 . 
 
 It needs but little genius or quickness of apprehen- 
 sion to distinguish, by the use of this key, what he 
 is with whom you are talking from what he seems 
 to be. Now 7 and then you happen on one who is of 
 such a remarkably secretive disposition that there 
 are only two parties who can understand him, God 
 and himself. As a rule, however, men are not so 
 uncommunicative as not to let out of them, from 
 time to time, enough of what is in them to satisfy 
 you as to their real character, in contradistinction 
 to that which, for one purpose or another, they may 
 assume. The instances are comparatively rare in 
 which, if you are intent upon knowing a man, you 
 cannot correctly infer w r hat he is from what consti- 
 tutes the burden of his talk. His words diffuse 
 about him an ill or pleasant savor as unconsciously 
 as a plant or flower, of which by the odor alone the 
 botanist can determine to what class it belongs. So 
 that you need feel no more uncertain when talking 
 with him whether or not you are in close proximity 
 to a foul-minded or pure-minded man, than whether 
 you are standing in the shadow of the offensive 
 ailanthus or of the pleasant magnolia. The savor 
 of his language will remove all doubt. His offen- 
 sive words betray a man's moral unsoundness as 
 unerringly as the offensive breath with which he 
 utters them tells that there is some physical organ 
 in him that is working corruption. Is it not philo- 
 
THE VULGARITY OF PROFANITY. 107 
 
 sophically true, that "out of the abundance of the 
 heart the mouth speaketh ?"* 
 
 But we will not further anticipate what ought to 
 have been reserved, perhaps, for the following chap- 
 ter. Let not the reader, if he has not mingled 
 much with them, suppose that these strictures on 
 the profanity of many of the gentry of our land 
 have no basis of fact to sustain them ; or that the 
 writer first imagined them guilty of vice, and then 
 attempted the thankless kindness of reprover. Let 
 him not innocently imagine that the charming 
 suavity of address, the choice, select phraseology 
 and unexceptionable politeness, which are certainly 
 very becoming and admirable in the parlors where 
 they socially meet from time to time, are character- 
 istic of all professed gentlemen, let them be where 
 they may. The testimony of their servants would 
 be sufficient to convict not a few of them of this 
 ungentlemanly vice elsewhere than in the parlor or 
 drawing-room. There is scarcely one into whose 
 hands this book may fall, who does not know men in 
 high-toned society who for their bad language de- 
 serve to be called "gentlemen" far less than many 
 less pretentious men who never expect to be dis- 
 tinguished by this title, except, perhaps, by the 
 merest accident. 
 
 The writer thinks that he performed a good act 
 once at least in his life, when he ventured to re- 
 * Matt. xii. 34. 
 
108 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 prove a scion of one of the u first families" for his 
 swearing. We were sitting in a barber's chair, 
 under the operation of being shaved. The ton- 
 sorial artist had just finished the process of lather- 
 ing when the sprig of gentility rushed into the room, 
 swearing most profusely. Asking the barber to 
 stop a moment, we turned to him and said : 
 
 " Do you know what Cowper is said to have writ- 
 ten on swearing ?" 
 
 "No, I don't." 
 
 " May I repeat it to you ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 ' ' It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme 
 Rudely appealed to for each trifling theme ; 
 Maintain your rank ; vulgarity despise ; 
 To swear is neither brave, polite, nor wise. 
 You would not swear upon a bed of death : 
 Reflect ; your Maker now could stop your breath." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 
 
 "^TO sensible person holds that profanity gives im- 
 -^-^ portance to conversation. If several persons 
 are engaged in familiar talk with each other, and one 
 or another interjects, now and then, some vile word 
 or irreverent expression, it is not accepted by the 
 rest of the company, if they are persons of good 
 judgment, as giving credence to the facts which are 
 told, or consequence to the statements which are 
 made, or edge to the jests which excite their mer- 
 riment, or interest to the discussions occasioned by 
 incidentally-introduced topics. He who soberly 
 argues that swearing gives more vigor to a remark 
 angrily made, or makes a witticism carelessly 
 spoken more entertaining, or makes more apparent 
 the truthfulness of some bold assertion, only betrays 
 his ignorance of the inherent and inextinguishable 
 power of words — which confession on his part, for 
 this it is in effect, should put us on our guard 
 against accepting anything he says without some 
 examination or inquiry. Instead of giving, an oath 
 or blasphemous expletive detracts from, the weight 
 of conversation. Has any one who indulges this 
 abuse of the tongue in his ordinary intercourse with 
 (109) 
 
110 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 others, ever impressed you as thus proving himself 
 a wise man? — a man of excellent judgment? — a 
 man competent to give you advice in an emergency ? 
 Have you ever felt yourself thus drawn towards 
 such an one as being a very discreet or judicious 
 friend ? If the reader, finding himself now and 
 then under depressing circumstances, needed a little 
 toning-up, it is doubtful whether he could find upon 
 the lips of such a counselor the moral tonic that he 
 needed ; it is very doubtful if he would seek for 
 such sympathy as would relieve him of one-half 
 of his burden, or such moral support as would re- 
 vitalize his lagging energies, in the conversation of 
 some habitual, foul-mouthed swearer. 
 
 Though it be a digression from the topic of this 
 chapter, yet will the reader here indulge us just 
 long enough to protest in general terms that there 
 is nothing at all tonic-like in profanity ? The 
 power of good, strong words, fitly spoken on appro- 
 priate occasions, is immense. The tongue is the 
 mighty lever with which the world's great orators 
 have moved the sluggish masses to duty — to acts 
 and enterprises whose results largely promoted 
 directly their own and indirectly the well-being of 
 the entire human race. Its utterances, modulated 
 by the varied emotions of the speaker, intensified 
 by his strong convictions, or mellowed by tender 
 thought, are as influential as heat or dew. Stealing 
 through his ear into the very soul of the listener, 
 
HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. Ill 
 
 like heat, they warm into action latent powers, of 
 which he himself may not have been conscious ; or, 
 like the dews of night upon vegetation which has 
 been wilting all day long under a scorching sun, 
 they freshen, invigorate and nerve him for further 
 upright, manly service and duty in the world. Nor 
 less at home in the conversations of the family or 
 social circle than in the pulpit, on the forum, or on 
 the platform, are good, choice and apppropriate 
 words inspiriting and helpful to every worthy end 
 of our being. They are the media through which 
 we give to, and receive from each other, sympathy, 
 hope, strength, joy and life. How soon would all 
 the activities of human life stagnate were the human 
 family suddenly deprived of the power of speech. 
 The truthfulnesss of these remarks or words, as 
 stimulative of life in general, is strikingly illustrated 
 by the utterance of the Master respecting spiritual 
 life in particular, " the words that I speak unto you, 
 they are spirit and they are life."* 
 
 But there is no tonic 'power in profanity. It 
 never strengthens resolution. It never inspires the 
 faint-hearted with hope. Vociferous curses, or 
 great, round, noisy oaths, never, stimulate endeavor, 
 or inspire confidence, or strengthen faith in them on 
 whom they are pitilessly showered. On the con- 
 trary, ten thousand times have they proved destruc- 
 tive of budding ambitions, promising expectations, 
 
 *Johnvi. 63. 
 
112 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 worthy emulations, and moral purposes, especially 
 in instances of youths thus cursed by their superiors 
 in years yet not in wisdom, as the pelting, merciless 
 hail is destructive of the tender, promising vegeta- 
 tion of a garden. They are like the hot breath of 
 the desert, that wilts whatever green thing it touches. 
 Many a youth, maddened by the blasphemous 
 imprecations of those in authority over him — an 
 employer, or "boss," in whom there was but little 
 or no "milk of human kindness" — and sadder still 
 becomes the fact we are stating, if it has been his 
 own father who thus proved himself not a saviour 
 but destroyer of the young — has actually taken 
 pains to crush such germs of goodness within his 
 nature as, carefully cultivated, might have blos- 
 somed ultimately into noble manhood. Many a 
 youth who, if the springs of life in his childhood 
 had not been befouled by the indecent blasphemies 
 of ungodly men, might have become an angel of 
 blessing to the world, has thus been fitted to act the 
 part of a mischievous, destructive demon. Never, 
 indeed — profanity never healthily stimulates but 
 surely enervates the powers of the moral man ; while 
 there is not one of the myriad of blatant swearers in 
 the land who gravely, or without laughing himself at 
 the absurdity of the notion, could assert that ic ever 
 had the material effect of strengthening the bone, 
 sinew and muscle, or of compacting more solidly the 
 nervous and fleshly texture of the physical man. 
 
HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 113 
 
 It has frequently been observed, and has occa- 
 sioned comments not very flattering, that the pro- 
 fane, as a rule, lack in moral, and very often as 
 well in physical courage. It is but telling the truth 
 to call them cowards. Often are they heard blas- 
 pheming their Maker, with an assumed fearless 
 carriage, as if it would not appall them were the 
 very "king of terrors" himself to stalk towards 
 them with uplifted blade to fell them to the earth. 
 As giving additional seasoning to their profane wit, 
 and that their assumed heroism may be supported 
 by a laugh from their boon companions, they often 
 gratuitously intermingle with their blasphemy sneer- 
 ing comments on religion, and the superstitious fears 
 of Christians, and the hypocrisy of church members. 
 It has amazed us to observe the cool assurance with 
 which such men deport themselves ; as if it were a 
 certain thing, or that they were not uneasy at all, 
 but that this sort of heroism would serve them quite 
 as well through, and guarantee, at last, quite as safe 
 an exit from this present life, as any religion or 
 Christian faith which wiser men profess. But we 
 have seen such heroes (?) tremble in fear of the 
 results of a little sickness. We have known them 
 to dispatch a messenger for the doctor, when some 
 good, kind grandmother, with her bunches of dried 
 herbs, could have served them quite as well. We have 
 known them to walk more rapidly than usual when 
 passing some lonely graveyard at night, " whistling" 
 
114 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 the while "to keep their courage up." And when 
 real, huge troubles swept down upon them, fierce 
 and terrible as an oriental tempest crashing down 
 the valleys of Palestine — a time when the godly are 
 made strong by divine answers to their Avhispered 
 petition, "Lead me to the rock that is higher than 
 I ! " — we have stood by them and pitied their utter 
 helplessness, in the moral as well as physical pros- 
 tration under which they suffered. 
 
 If we w^ere to look for exceptions to this rule, we 
 should not find many even in the military profession, 
 which is usually expected to furnish the w^orld with 
 the grandest illustrations of what it calls "heroism." 
 There are many military chieftains who cannot dis- 
 cipline or control their bristling battalions even on 
 a simple dress-parade, let alone on the field of actual 
 battle, without superadding to their official orders 
 the coarsest, most vulgar, and unprofessional oaths 
 and imprecations. Over against their successes in 
 war, and the great sacrifices which they have made 
 for their country — deeds which demand and receive 
 the grateful appreciation of the people — stands the 
 deplorable fact, which cannot be concealed by the 
 glitter of their military personnel, that they are 
 very children in the art of self-control. Slaves as 
 they are, indeed, to a vice which the wise and 
 thoughtful of all ages have united in denouncing as 
 the meanest which a man can practice, it directly 
 conflicts with our idea of what constitutes real, 
 
HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 115 
 
 manly courage, to call them ••heroes." If. not- 
 withstanding their inexcusable profanity, the God 
 
 of battles gives them victory on the field of carnage 
 now and then, and it may consist with the apprecia- 
 tion of the enthusiastic masses — an appreciate 
 which but seldom distinguishes between the real and 
 the fictitious merits of its subject — to accord to them 
 civic hone ~:\ . : : leek their swelling breasts with stars, 
 and to issue from the press flattering volumes, en- 
 titled ••T/cer Biography of a Hero" yet. lacking the 
 moral bravery which best displays itself in seizing 
 and throttling one's own vices, in conquering one's 
 self — the most dangerous enemy that he can face in 
 conflicts of human hie — the mere physical cour- 
 age of such canonized generals impresses us as being 
 scarcely more admirable than the fury of some roused 
 lion. If these (distinguished swearers will accept 
 His Word whose holy name thev can so easilv abuse, 
 from time to time, as determining the degree of 
 merit of which they may fairly boast, they will find 
 it there recorded that ,; he that ruleth his spirit is 
 ier than he that taketh a city." * 
 The real moral cowardice of the profane, and 
 notably such as are wont to garnish their speeches 
 with frequent allusions to the prince of the infernal 
 world, is finelv set forth in Festus. Moralizing on 
 Life and Man, in which thoughtful mood he passion- 
 ately expresses the wish that he might have been 
 
 *Prov. xvi B2 . 
 
116 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 the " sun-mind" of the world, Festus, who had 
 even "prayed the stars" to give him some clearer 
 and more tangible revelation of the invisible power 
 which had ever been making itself felt in human 
 life, is startled by the unheralded advent of Lucifer ! 
 Mistaking his true character, Festus greets, and 
 begs to kneel to him. But the infernal spirit for- 
 bids it, and takes occasion from this instance of ill- 
 directed devotion to ridicule the blatant, braggart 
 swearer : 
 
 " Lucifer — Nay, rise ! and I'll not say, for thine own sake, 
 That thon dost pray in private to the Devil. 
 Festus — Father of lies, thou liest ! 
 Lucifer— I am he ; 
 
 It is enough to make the devil merry, 
 To think that men call on me momently, 
 Deeming me ever dungeoned fast in Hell ; 
 Swearers and swaggerers jeer at my name ; 
 And oft indeed it is a special jest 
 With witling gallants. Let me once appear ! 
 Woe's me ! they faint and shudder — pale and 
 
 pray ! 
 The burning oath which quivered on the lip, 
 Starts back and scars and blisters up the 
 
 tongue ; 
 Confusion ransacks the abandoned heart, 
 Quells the bold blood, and o'er the vaulted 
 
 brow r 
 Slips the white woman-hand. To judgment, 
 
 ho! 
 The pivot of the earth seems snapped ; 
 And down they drop like ruins to repent. 
 Such be the bravery of mighty man."* 
 
 * Festus. Philip James Bailey, Boston, 1838, pp. 32-33. 
 
HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 117 
 
 But let us return from this digression. Your 
 real good talker, as every observer of the manners 
 and morals of good society will tell you — your in- 
 teresting talker, who is as truthful as he is enter- 
 taining, nor is less sensitive of wounding his friends 
 than of violating the truth, and whose presence, 
 therefore, is courted for the pleasure his conversa- 
 tion affords* — never interlards offensive slang, cant 
 phrases, extravagant exclamations, coarse epithets, 
 and unmeaning expletives, between his pleasantries. 
 He never spurts out words that can neither prove 
 good sense on his part, nor please his company. 
 He can he brilliant, hut not boorish; he can be 
 witty without wickedness ; he can be festive with- 
 out foulness ; and, though he may be a little vain of 
 his linguistic eminence, yet we can easily tolerate 
 this weakness so long as he is not vulgar. Your 
 sensible talker, though he lacks such brilliant quali- 
 ties as would make him a welcome caller upon any 
 
 * Visitors at the home of the venerable and genial poet, 
 John Gr. Whittier, have remarked, in substance, that it 
 ■was almost equal to a year's schooling in the English 
 language, to enjoy one hour's conversation with him. 
 His words are so pure, beautiful, simple, and so well 
 adapted to whatever topic may be incidentally intro- 
 duced — all his expressions, indeed, are so innocent of the 
 least term that might offend the taste, either of the scholar 
 or of the moralist — that it is really delightful to visit and 
 talk with him. Your man of real culture never regards 
 profane words as necessary to interesting speech. 
 
118 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 family circle, or visitor at any club-room, or com- 
 panion of travel, regards an oath as no more orna- 
 mental to conversation than some unsightly excres- 
 cence, such as a hideous wart, or encysted tumor, 
 to a face which, otherwise, may be as beautiful as 
 the countenance of the Madonna. Impurity of 
 speech, in his judgment, is no less an abuse of the 
 privilege of conversation, than which none of the 
 privileges of human society is more easily abused, 
 than an indecent attitude would be an abuse of the 
 pleasure of his friend's presence. As full of humor 
 as of intelligence, and without repressing in the 
 least the ardor of his sociability, your bright, 
 ready, interesting talker can enhance the pleasure 
 of a company for hours together, and not once 
 offend either their religious sentiment, or good sense, 
 or pure taste. We can be, entertained even to 
 laughter — for we think it no crime, under given cir- 
 cumstances, as well to enjoy our natural capacity to 
 laugh, as, under other circumstances, to let our 
 natural capacity to weep find exercise — we can be 
 entertained even to good, hearty laughter, by such 
 an intelligent, gentlemanly conversationalist, without 
 a single twinge of conscience as to the morality of 
 the enjoyment, since in all his talk he observes the 
 sound advice of George Herbert : 
 
 " When thou dost tell another's jest, therein 
 Omit the oaths, which true wit cannot need ; 
 Pick out of tales the mirth, but not the sin ; 
 He pares his apple that will cleanly feed/' 
 
HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 119 
 
 Logic is not needed to prove that profanity gives 
 neither importance nor polish to conversation. This 
 is as self-evident as an axiom of mathematics. Not, 
 then, to demonstrate, but simply to illustrate both 
 this undeniable statement and how the vice may be 
 delicately reproved, we shall here reproduce an 
 incident which the relator most graphically describes 
 as having happened under his own observation. As 
 reduction to a less space would but mar the pen- 
 picture of the episode that he sketches, the reader 
 will not object if we give it in its entirety: 
 
 " On entering the coach at Burlington, I found 
 but two passengers. My attention was instantly 
 arrested by the appearance of each — the one an 
 aged man of unusual size, in a suit of fine black 
 cloth, evidently brushed with care. His head was 
 partly bald: but the few thin fleeces of shining hair 
 were gracefully disposed, and as purely white and 
 soft as eider-down. His complexion was ruddy, and 
 replete with health — his teeth singularly fine and 
 regular for one of his age, which probably was 
 seventy — his eyes large and blue, which beamed 
 with intellect and benevolence — his linen and cravat 
 were somewhat clerical — his cane, suited to his 
 weight, was crowned with polished gold, on which 
 were engraved his initials and crest, and in his hand 
 was a miniature volume of Cicero De Senectute. 
 My romance was all on fire : instinct with curiosity, 
 I eyed him so intently that the old gentleman's 
 
120 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 eyelids involuntarily fell ; but, perceiving my con- 
 fusion, and even the pain I felt at my unintentional 
 rudeness, he soon rallied, and restored me by the 
 most courteous address. By this time my attention 
 was somewhat diverted to the other, who was a 
 youth of seventeen, of such surprising beauty and 
 winning manners, so full of the joyousness of the 
 aurora of life, and of the ingenuousness of a bliss- 
 ful ignorance of the world, that 1 began to imagine 
 myself in some region of enchantment. We were 
 all strangers to each other, and though of different 
 ages and pursuits in life, we soon made acquaint- 
 ance, and beguiled our slow passage through the 
 shady avenues of the Green Mountain, on this 
 lovely summer afternoon, by much delightful con- 
 versation, in which the chief interlocutor was the 
 venerable gentleman in black. The youth, how- 
 ever, participated in his due share, and made many 
 just and amiable remarks ; but, to the astonishment 
 of us both, and to the manifest pain of the Conscript 
 Father, he sivore like a trooper! and yet with tones 
 so sweet, and in a manner so naive, as evidently 
 proclaimed it a mere habit, in which his heart and 
 head seemed in no degree to participate. The old 
 gentleman related an hundred anecdotes ; and, in 
 the most pleasing and popular manner, discoursed 
 of the wonders of botany, and of the mineral world ; 
 of the sublime curio sa in astronomy ; of the hidden 
 glories revealed to us by the microscope; of the 
 
HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 121 
 
 beauties of crystallization ; of the evidences of de- 
 sign unfolded by optics, especially in the structure 
 of the eye ; of the merely relative nature of time 
 and space, and that these probably appertain to 
 man alone ; and that, if the visible universe could 
 be compressed into a ball an inch in diameter, why 
 may we not imagine myriads of years embraced as 
 it were, by a moment! And in this delightfully 
 pious and instructive vein he continued to beguile 
 the otherwise wearisome hours. The sun, at length, 
 was fast declining ; the richest perfumes emanated 
 from the surrounding woods and flowers, which 
 bordered on our way ; and somewhat exhausted by 
 the many hours of conversation, each seemed wil- 
 ling to repose, for a while, in a corner of the car- 
 riage, and all gave tokens that they would sleep. 
 But I perceived the old gentleman occasionally 
 opened his eyes, cast a yearning look of affection 
 on the. youth, then closed them with a sigh! He 
 at length broke the silence ; our slumber instantly 
 left us, and we were again all attention. Looking 
 out upon the scenery, as we were descending the 
 mountain into a rich valley, 'What,' said the old 
 gentleman, 'can surpass (bottle, pot, and glass') the 
 solemn and majestic (bottle, pot, and glass) gloom 
 of the surrounding mountains! (bottle, pot, and 
 glass :) the pensive silence of the groves ! (bottle, 
 pot, and glass:) the pastoral simplicity (bottle, 
 pot, and glass) of the cottages, (bottle, pot, and 
 6 
 
122 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 glass:') or the wild luxuriancy (bottle, pot, and 
 glass) of the meadows! How pleasing is it to con- 
 template (bottle, pot, and glass) the noble spirit 
 of perseverance (bottle, pot, and glass) which has 
 enabled the husbandman to climb (bottle, pot, and 
 glass) the highest mountains, and change the rude 
 garb of nature (bottle, pot, and glass) for the rich 
 habiliments of cultivation (bottle, pot, and glass). 
 How pleasing to behold (bottle, pot, and glass) the 
 verdant hills rising amphitheatrically around, (bot- 
 tle, pot, and glass;) to observe the progressive in- 
 fluence of the departing sun on the distant moun- 
 tains, (bottle, pot, and glass :) or the bright orb 
 of day rising in the pride of his splendor, (bottle, 
 pot, and glass,) gilding with his ruddy light, and 
 chasing from the trees (bottle, pot, and glass) the 
 fogs fantastically formed on their lofty tops ! (bottle, 
 pot, and glass.) Who that hath a soul for nature's 
 beauties (bottle, pot, and glass) would refuse to 
 bow it down in worship and gratitude (bottle, pot, 
 and glass) to the great Author of so much loveli- 
 ness? (bottle, pot, and glass.) 9 Here the old man 
 ceased, closed his eyes, and again sunk into his cor- 
 ner. With mingled astonishment and heartfelt pain 
 the youth and myself exchanged looks, and sighed 
 expressively ; recognizing in each other's eye the 
 deep conviction that this delightful old man was, 
 after all, a victim of mental derangement ! In a few 
 minutes, however, he opened his eyes, looked at the 
 
HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 123 
 
 youth so benignantly, and so naturally, that we again 
 exchanged looks of recognition that there must be 
 some concealed and pregnant meaning in this strange 
 departure from his Mentorian character. ' Dear sir,' 
 said the youth, 'I hope you are not unwell; and 
 may I ask, what did you mean by all that about the 
 " bottle, pot, and glass?"' 'My amiable young 
 friend,' replied the old gentleman, 'you may well 
 express surprise ; but what did you mean, during 
 the five hours of our agreeable conversation, by 
 your numerous swearing expletives? Amidst all 
 of your good sense, and sound observations for one 
 of your age, why did you take God's holy name in 
 vain, more than an hundred times ? — why did you 
 use more than thrice that number of times words 
 quite as senseless and unconnected with your dis- 
 course as my ' bottle, pot, and glass ' were, in mine ? 
 I thus spoke to show you visibly and audibly, as it 
 were, the extreme folly of swearing, and how purely 
 expletive are such words, and how ill-suited to the 
 dignity of man, and especially painful when uttered 
 by youthful lips ! God hath endowed us with lan- 
 guage for the most delightful of all communions — 
 for the sole purpose of conveying our thoughts : and 
 when we violate that purpose by such foreign mate- 
 rials, we offend no less against religion than good 
 taste.' The youth burst into tears. 'Sir,' said 
 he, ' I revere all you say, and here solemnly pledge 
 myself never again to use such unmeaning language. 
 
124 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 I now see its real odiousness and folly for the first 
 time in my life ; and shall be ever thankful for your 
 admonition.' The impressions sank deep into his 
 heart, and he has kept his word. The old gentleman 
 has long since been gathered to his fathers. The 
 youth is now a man, and as eminent for his virtues 
 as he then seemed to be for his personal beauty."* 
 If the amiable youth thus ingeniously and effect- 
 ually cured of this unlovely vice could have seen 
 his "discourse," with its " hundred" shocking 
 oaths, and "thrice that number" of unnecessary, 
 unornamental, irrelevant expletives, in print, doubt- 
 less he would have read it with even more " aston- 
 ishment and heartfelt pain " than he felt on discov- 
 ering, as at first he supposed, that the old gentleman 
 in the coach with him w r as a maniac. His tears but 
 proved the depth of his shame. There are ten 
 thousand swearers whose cheeks w^ould pale, and 
 pulse quicken, and hands tremble, and, as they read 
 it, whose tongues would falter, if, at sunset, some 
 one handed them a slip of paper on which had been 
 printed, with clear-cut type, and with such charac- 
 ters as might represent emphasis, inflection, and 
 intonation, all the oaths of a single day, — all the 
 blasphemies and indecent words which they had 
 spoken since sunrise. Nor would it lessen their 
 
 * Miscellaneous Thoughts on Men, Manners, and Things, 
 By Anthony Grumbler, of Grumbleton Hall, Esquire : Bal- 
 timore, 1837, pp. 358-362. 
 
HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 125 
 
 agitation to be told, that such minutes of their 
 wonted language, or record of their guilty words, 
 had been kept daily, from their youth to the present 
 time, and that they were even stereotyped — stereo- 
 typed beyond the possibility of destruction even by 
 the fires of " the last day." It is not an empty 
 poetic figment, or splendid paradox, which has been 
 expressed by an eloquent writer, * extravagant only 
 in limiting perpetuity to them alone, that" words 
 are the only things that last forever." If they 
 are as intangible, they are, too, as inextinguishable 
 as the mind that makes them the medium of its 
 thought. Very significant of this more than poetic 
 sentiment is the positive declaration of the Master. 
 As if deeming it unnecessary to predicate everlast- 
 ingness of the good words spoken by men, since 
 they themselves are not apt to forget them, He 
 aims, apparently, to correct the false impression 
 of many, that bad words become extinct with the 
 breath that utters them: — "But I say unto you, 
 that every idle word that men shall speak, they 
 shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." f 
 The spirit of words is as immortal as the soul that 
 reveals its likeness, whether of beauty or of de- 
 formity, through them. 
 
 " Words are mighty, words are living — serpents with their 
 venomed stings, 
 
 * William Hazlett. 
 f Matt. xii. 36. 
 
126 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 Or bright angels crowding round us, with heaven's light 
 
 upon their wings ; 
 Every word has its own spirit, true or false, that never 
 
 dies; 
 Every word man's lips have uttered lives on record in the 
 
 skies." 
 
 At first easy and indifferent to what he said in 
 answer to the examination of " bloody bishop Bon- 
 ner," the martyr Latimer, hearing the scratching 
 of some invisible pen, became more chary of his 
 words. A hint, this, which it w T ould be wise for 
 them to act upon who, as utterly mindless of their 
 speeches as of the record which God makes of them, 
 may come to believe, too late for any practical use 
 that could be made of the startling truth, that 
 " words are * * things that last forever !" 
 
 Assuming that the swearer agrees with the writer 
 that his profanity adds nothing either to the import- 
 ance or to the polish of his conversation, we think 
 that we can also make it plain to him that it never 
 strengthens or confirms Ms veracity. It is no 
 proof of truthfulness. It is no sign of sincerity. 
 It begets in other minds, not confidence in the 
 swearer, or belief of his assertions, but suspicions 
 of his honesty, or mistrust of his statements. If it 
 evinces anything* at all, besides the depravity that 
 prompts it, it has all the appearance of evidence 
 that the swearer himself regards his own utterances 
 as not credible unless they are accompanied by some 
 profane demonstration. If he thus suspects himself, 
 
HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 127 
 
 or confesses, in effect, that what he says cannot be 
 believed unless he superadds to it an oath, certainly 
 he should not blame others if they also suspect his 
 truthfulness. 
 
 It is sometimes doing a man a .great wrong to 
 treat him in strict accordance with his own ex- 
 pressed or implied estimate of himself. It would 
 contribute more to his interests or well-being, 
 quietly to ignore his own innocent idiosyncrasies, 
 and treat him in accordance with the average judg- 
 ment that his friends and acquaintances have formed 
 of him. But* how shall we treat the swearer, under 
 this unfavorable aspect of his sin? If in making 
 assertions of one kind or another, he expects to be 
 believed only as he mingles needless blasphemies 
 with them, shall we accept the alternative which 
 such an expectation involves, whether it be ex- 
 pressed or simply implied it matters not, that he is 
 falsifying when he does not swear to what he says ? 
 This certainly would deeply wound him ; while if 
 we believe what he says because he swears to it, we 
 not only deeply wound our Maker, in that we en- 
 courage what He has solemnly and threateningly 
 forbidden, but we also concede, in effect, as being 
 true, what common sense teaches is false, that pro- 
 fanity is a test of truthfulness. In minds which 
 have properly estimated its baseness and guiltiness, 
 and are sensitively watchful against all sorts of 
 falsehood and ever jealous of the truth, it always 
 
128 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 excites at least grave doubt, if not real disbelief, 
 of their veracity who are in the habit of using it. 
 Since it is oftener used to confirm a rash or doubt- 
 ful saying than a plain fact or truth, the swearer 
 himself cannot complain if we believe him not the 
 more, but the less, because he swears to what he 
 says. However strong the emphasis, and demon- 
 strative other incidental accompaniments of his 
 manner of utterance, yet the gross sin he commits 
 impresses upon our mind the conviction that he is 
 not sincere. 
 
 How can I believe that he who is false to his 
 Maker is true to me ? If he has so little respect for 
 Him that, when telling me some trivial thing w r hich 
 he wishes me to believe, he can coolly blaspheme 
 the Almighty in order to give weight to his words, 
 is it at all probable that he has so much more respect 
 for it that he will not violate the truth ? Consider- 
 ing the fact that there are many more and stronger 
 temptations to lie than to swear, we can hardly be 
 convinced that, if he yields so easily to the latter, 
 he will not as easily yield to the former, as circum- 
 stances may make it expedient. Broad, then, as the 
 statement may seem, that a man who swears will 
 lie, and condemnatory of many who will resent the 
 inference as charging on them another vice not 
 much less dishonorable than profanity, yet, if it be 
 not based on facts, or if it appear to the reader as 
 but a false conclusion from false premises, it remains 
 
HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 129 
 
 for him to prove its unreasonableness, or untruth- 
 fulness; let him expose the sophistry, if such it be. 
 Far less flattering than sound and true is the advice 
 of the quaint Francis Quarles, "Trust not to the 
 promise of a common swearer; for he that dare sin 
 against his God for neither profit nor pleasure, will 
 trespass against thee for his own advantage. He 
 that dare break the precepts of his Father, will 
 easily be persuaded to violate the promise unto his 
 brother." For thus encouraging the feeling of sus- 
 picion or distrust towards him, the swearer ought 
 not to be offended at any one but himself. It is his 
 own fault that others cannot think him truthful be- 
 cause he swears. Rev. Dr. Parker of London re- 
 cently counseled a large audience to "have no faith 
 in any man who is irreverent, for reverence is the 
 
 basis of all that is noble and tender in character." 
 
 i 
 
 There are very many good people who are not 
 severe in their judgment of what are simply weak- 
 nesses or failings in other men's character, yet to 
 whom the habitual swearer thus appears as not being 
 an honest man. They not only cannot confide in 
 him as not being truthful, but they will not trust 
 him in a position that would test his honesty. If 
 two young men of equal business qualities, one of 
 whom was a swearer and the other was not, applied 
 to them for some position or office of trust, it would 
 not take them a moment to determine which of the 
 twain they would employ. Short and decisive, and 
 6* 
 
130 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 as humiliating to him as unsatisfactory, would be 
 their argument against engaging the profane appli- 
 cant : " If he can so easily, or on the most incidental 
 occasions, blaspheme his Maker, he would not hesi- 
 tate, for some trifling thing, to curse me; and if he 
 cursed me, what guarantee could he give that he 
 would not rob me ? Between his profanity and my 
 suspicion of his lack of honesty, the relation that we 
 held to each other as employer and employe cer- 
 tainly could not be a pleasant one : and so it would 
 be better to have nothing to do with a common 
 swearer." This is the easy, summary, and no one 
 can argue that it is not reasonable, method with 
 which many business men dispose of such applicants 
 for their favor as are known to be profane. 
 
 None who has read of Howard, the distinguished 
 philanthropist, could justly charge him with unmerci- 
 fulness, or a lack of kind consideration towards 
 the guilty. He spent his life, after his appoint- 
 ment, in 1773, to the office of high sheriff of Bed- 
 ford, England, in most persistent inquiries into the 
 condition of criminals and their experiences of 
 prison-life The deep practical interest in them 
 which sent him, not only from, one to another till he 
 had visited and minutely examined every prison in 
 his own country, but even abroad, " to remember 
 the forgotten," as one who knew him well finely 
 expressed it, " to attend to the neglected, to visit 
 the forsaken, and to compare and collate the dis- 
 
HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 131 
 
 tress of all men in all countries," made him better 
 acquainted with the causes and relations of crime, 
 the intimate connection that obtains between human 
 vices, than any other man of his age. Yet the 
 High Sheriff of Bedford, John Howard, would 
 never trust a swearer. It is related of him, that, 
 standing once in a crowd near a post-office, he heard 
 a man uttering a volley of oaths. " Look to your 
 pockets," he cried aloud, buttoning up his own 
 tightly, " always take care of your pockets when 
 you find yourself among swearers. He who will 
 take God's name in vain will think little of taking 
 your purse, or doing anything else that is evil." 
 
 This is but another way of saying, that a man 
 who swears ivill steal — a statement which, like one 
 on a preceding page, will not seem more severe 
 than true, to the profane, if they will but thought- 
 fully consider that the sins, or vices, which man so 
 willingly, and often very blindly, indulges, are so 
 leagued together that he cannot patronize one with- 
 out encouraging all of them. They constitute a 
 confederacy of evil, the object of which is to ruin 
 him. Fathered by the Prince of Darkness, they 
 are a fraternity, intimate fellowship with one of 
 which identifies him with the whole order. If he 
 is voluntarily so wicked as to swear, is it at all 
 probable that he is too conscientious to lie ? And 
 if with little or no provocation, he can so easily 
 swear and lie, is it a very unlikely thing, that he 
 
132 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 would steal ? And if he is voluntarily so wicked that 
 he swears, and lies, and steals, is it credible that 
 he is so morally pure that he would not commit 
 audultery, or fornication ? If he thus encourages 
 one vice after another, and offers, from time to time, 
 no resistance to temptation, it would hardly startle 
 us to hear that he had committed, too, the crime 
 of forgery. And if he has become so desperate 
 as to commit forgery, to relieve the wants created 
 by a licentious life, is it a suggestion too shocking 
 to be entertained, that, actuated by the same feeling 
 of desperation, he would murder a fellow-man? 
 The relation that subsists thus between the vices 
 that disgrace human nature, is very intimate. Nor 
 does it argue against this view of their intimacy of 
 association, that all sinners are not equally guilty 
 of all sins. Every one carries in his fallen nature 
 the germs of every sin that man has ever com- 
 mitted. Many have not made themselves flagrantly 
 guilty of all known sins, solely through fear of 
 civil arrest, conviction, and consequent punishment. 
 Others are apparently, or comparatively, innocent 
 simply through want of opportunity to sin. And, 
 thanks be unto Him for the distinction, it is only 
 the grace of God that makes the best men to differ 
 from the impenitent guilty — grace that first regen- 
 erates, and then enables them to lead blameless 
 lives. 
 
 It is dangerous, then, to encourage any vice. If 
 
HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 133 
 
 the moral sense be forced to take but one, as it 
 were, under its patronage, all the rest of the fra- 
 ternity will persistently clamor for its auspices. No 
 poet ever wrote truer lines than these — 
 
 "'Tis fearful building upon any sin; 
 
 One mischief enter' d brings another in ; 
 
 The second pulls a third, the third draws more ; 
 
 And they for all the rest set ope the door ; 
 
 Till custom takes away the judging sense, 
 
 That to offend, we think it no offence."* 
 
 But of all the vices, against the indulgence of 
 which the young should be specially warned as con- 
 stituting the beginnings of a criminal life, in the 
 judgment of the writer there is none so dangerous 
 as foul or irreverent speech. We would give neither 
 lying nor petty larceny precedence in this respect. 
 Our words react upon ourselves. Their effect upon 
 ourselves is no less appreciable than their effect 
 upon others. The sound of his own voice as it 
 touches his own ears stimulates a child, just begin- 
 ning to talk, to repeat the unaccustomed words 
 which he attempted. Many an orator, attempting 
 the highest flights of eloquence, has been stirred to 
 the effort as much by the tones of his own voice — 
 the inspiring sentiment clothed in his own words — 
 as by the plaudits of his audience. Responding to 
 the inspiration of her own musical rhythm, the 
 prima donna excels herself, while her admirers 
 
 * William Smith. 
 
134 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 listen with rapt attention; if there were no reac- 
 tion of her song upon herself, from time to time, 
 she would never have become distinguished as a 
 musical artist. Our own words thus make us what 
 we are, or what Ave aspire to. Their reflective is 
 not the least force that attaches to them. Soft, 
 kind words not only make others amiable towards 
 us, but their reactive effect is to deepen the etching 
 of love's image on our own souls. Angry words 
 not only madden others, but they are, as well, the 
 fuel with which the angry one keeps his own wrath 
 ablaze. Vulgar and obscene words return to, and 
 re-impress upon, the wanton imagination the foul 
 ideas they express, as certainly as the echoes of the 
 bad words themselves, if spoken in some resonant 
 cavern or grotto, would startle the speaker's ears. 
 For this reason, then, we insist that there is no vice 
 indulged in by a youth that should be more peremp- 
 torily forbidden, or that should be more carefully 
 prevented, if possible, by those who have authority 
 over him, than that of swearing. Every oath that 
 he utters, be the motive or feeling what it may that 
 prompts it, recoils upon himself, in that it wears 
 away that reverence for sacred things of which, 
 when one has entirely rid himself, he " will think 
 little," as John Howard says, "of doing anything 
 else that is evil." 
 
 As compared with other faults of conversation 
 there is none at once so inexcusable and criminal as 
 
HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 135 
 
 profanity. We are utterly unable to suggest any 
 motive, reason, or circumstance that might justify 
 it. That a man should persist in interjecting favor- 
 ite foreign words in his talks with you is not an 
 unpardonable offence. It is a violation, not of the 
 moral law, but simply of literary taste. He has 
 been abroad, perhaps, and has been sedulously cul- 
 tivating the twang of the French, or practicing Ger- 
 man gutturals, and, like the professional breeder 
 who claims that, in order to the production of the 
 best stock, there must be an admixture of different 
 families, he innocently imagines that, in order to 
 the best elocution, there must be a minofle-mano'le 
 of different tongues. Or, it may be, that he has 
 never been very far from home, that he was born 
 and bred among, and still mingles with, a class of 
 rustics whose vocabulary has never been submitted 
 to critical revision by some learned, cultured lex- 
 icographer, or " Professor of Anglo-Saxon," which 
 fact might explain and extenuate his free use of 
 provincialisms in his conversation. Or, nature has 
 endowed him with a large imagination, which may 
 account for his habit, if he be given to it, of exag- 
 geration. There may be, too, a good deal of the 
 pugnacious in his moral temperament, so that he 
 can not talk very long with you, even on the most 
 trivial subject, without betraying the spirit of con- 
 tradiction. Or, if he be given to volubility, and 
 your friendliness towards him forbids you to recall, 
 
136 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 and moralize on the appositeness of the trite maxim, 
 " it is the empty wagon that makes the loudest 
 noise," yet you can take the more amiable view of 
 his fault, that it proceeds from an open, communi- 
 cative disposition, and that he talks a great deal 
 simply because he has a great deal to say. If his 
 conversation be marred by none of these blemishes, 
 yet it may be obnoxious to the charge of prolixity 
 which, if it were, though a distinguished philologist 
 says it is " not always tedious," is still but a fault, 
 not a crime And if there be, as well, no little 
 display of pedantry in his manner, yet we can 
 tolerate even this, if he can but express an original 
 idea, or tell us something that we had never heard 
 before. 
 
 Of all these minor faults, one or more of which 
 appears in nearly every one's conversation whom 
 we happen upon in the street, or meet in the social 
 circle, either some reason sufficient, if not to justify, 
 at least to make them tolerable, or some true ex- 
 planation which, if offered even in a jocular tone, or 
 with a view to a little innocent merriment over it, 
 would lose none of its force, may be given. If they 
 are transgressions of conventional rules, enacted by 
 the cultured for the perfecting of conversation as an 
 art — an end not unfrequently gained at no small 
 cost, since, if art be allowed to control conversa- 
 tion, it runs the risk of losing its soul, naturalness — 
 yet, excepting the habit of exaggeration which, in- 
 
HOW IT AFFECTS CONVERSATION. 137 
 
 dulgecl too freely, becomes real falsehood, there is 
 no moral sniilt incurred by them. But of the greater 
 fault, profanity — the blot with which many who 
 pretend to considerable culture befoul their talk, 
 from time to time — there can be given no satisfac- 
 tory explanation. In all honesty, they who are 
 guiltv of it must concede with the writer, that — 
 
 It never gives importance to conversation ; 
 
 It has no tonic-like property ; 
 
 It is no evidence of courage, moral or physical ; 
 
 It is not ornamental to conversation, or it gives no polish 
 
 to it: 
 It never assures us of the swearer's veracity ; 
 It is no evidence of honesty ; 
 It is intimately related to all other vices ; 
 It is the most dangerous of all vices ; and 
 It is the most inexcusable and criminal of all the faults of 
 
 conversation. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 
 
 r I ^HERE is no reasonable excuse for profanity. 
 -*- If there be found any real pleasure in the 
 indulgence of other bad habits, yet certainly from 
 this there can be derived not the least positive en- 
 joyment. If, to the satisfaction, not of the writer, 
 since, as is evident from the pages of this essay, 
 his judgment of the horrid vice, in all its aspects 
 and relations to one's well being, is already formed, 
 but of any three intelligent men whom he himself 
 may select — men who can detect the difference 
 between an argument and a jest, since there are so 
 many who can scarcely discuss the vice without 
 some display of wit, and, too, who are not biased 
 in the least by religious or Christian views of the 
 offence: — if, to the satisfaction of such competent 
 arbiters, any swearer on this wide earth can demon- 
 strate that there is any real, positive enjoyment or 
 pleasure experienced in the act or habit of swearing, 
 the writer will engage himself to repudiate, as pub- 
 licly as he now makes this challenge, his present 
 decisive judgment of the vice. Such a philosoph- 
 ical swearer, if successful in his attempted demon- 
 stration, might well claim the reward which an old 
 (138) 
 
INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 139 
 
 sage once offered to the discoverer of a " new 
 pleasure." 
 
 Many and very weak are the apologies which the 
 swearer offers for his offence. He often pleads 
 habit as extenuating, and almost as justifying it. 
 He swears because, somehow or other, he " got 
 into the habit of doing it, and cannot more easily 
 break off from it." From his semi-confessional 
 tone — his light, indifferent manner of speaking of 
 it — it is presumable that he considers the criminality 
 of the vice as comparatively small, because it has 
 become to him habitual. Let us, then, examine this 
 plea. 
 
 Is the guilt or enormity of an offence against God 
 or man lessened by its repetition ? Does God or 
 man, in the discipline of moral government, regard 
 the violation of law as becoming less and less an 
 offence or transgression, the longer or more fre- 
 quently such violations are committed? If it be 
 found on his trial at the bar that a man has been an 
 habitual thief, does he, therefore, deserve more 
 mercy and less condemnation, and, hence, a milder 
 punishment, than if he had committed the crime of 
 theft but once or twice in his previous life ? A man 
 is arraigned for forgery. It is in evidence before 
 court and jury that he has long been cultivating the 
 imitation of other men's autographs, and has often 
 used his art for illegal purposes. Will his counsel, 
 then, plead this fact, that unfortunately he had fallen 
 
140 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 into the habit of imitating other men's names, as 
 extenuating or lessening his client's guilt, and there- 
 fore his punishment, if he deserved any at all, should 
 be as light as possible ? Shouts of laughter from 
 grave judges, sober jurors, and interested spectators 
 would greet the learned counsel presenting such a 
 burlesque of logic and laAV for their serious con- 
 sideration. 
 
 It is not the last but the first offence against the 
 laws of the land, in respect of which the judgment 
 of the court is often moderated or softened by ex- 
 tenuating circumstances. In consideration, per- 
 chance, of the prisoner's youthfulness, and of the 
 fact that it is his " first offence," he receives mercy 
 as well as judgment from the bench, in that his sen- 
 tence is made as light as the law will allow. But 
 after serving out his term of imprisonment, let him 
 repeat the offence again and again, which is not an 
 unusual thing w T ith criminals, before he is again 
 arrested, and on his arraignment and conviction again 
 at the bar of justice, he shall find, that in the judg- 
 ment of the law, as expressed by the court, and 
 endorsed by the jury, his habit of transgression has 
 made him obnoxious to the severest penalty which 
 that violated law prescribes for it. 
 
 Habit, then, neither excuses the practice nor lessens 
 the guilt of sin. Every repetition of a vice increases 
 the sinner's guilt, and, it is true, lessens, but does not 
 destroy, his power of will to resist it. It is sad to 
 
IXEXCUSABLEXESS OF THE VICE. 1-il 
 
 know that vices thus can at length bind the human 
 soul as with hempen cords. Every indulgence 
 weaves another thread in them — one after another 
 as the sinful thing is repeated — till no blade less 
 keen than " the sword of the Spirit" can cut them in 
 twain and release the soul from its bondage. In- 
 dulging an evil habit for years, without attempting 
 to correct it, you become a prisoner with but little, 
 if any, hope of release from prison; and that habit 
 is your jailor, stern, watchful, rigid and severe in 
 his exactions — a jailor, commissioned by yourself 
 to keep you in " durance vile." A man who never 
 exerts himself to arrest the development of a vice 
 in his life or character, becomes at length, indeed, 
 a slave. The slave-driver — his vice, whatever it 
 may be — may be hated, yet no hatred in the driven 
 slave shall make his master lenient or merciful. 
 With his manhood sacrificed thus to the whims of 
 such a master, his consciousness of dignity, as hav- 
 ing been made in the image of God, destroyed, and 
 even his sense of shame dissipated, what a sad, 
 humiliating condition for a rational, intelligent hu- 
 man being to fall into ! If this be one of the sad 
 results of indulged vice in this life, to say nothing 
 of its fearful consequences in the life to come, how 
 careful should we be to guard against its beginnings ! 
 
 "O, tlie dangerous siege 
 Sin lays about us ! And the tyranny 
 He exercises. * * * * 
 
142 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 Like to the horror of a winter's thunder, 
 
 Mixed with a gushing storm that suffers nothing 
 
 To stir abroad on earth but its own rages, 
 
 Is sin, when it hath gathered head above us ; 
 
 No roof, no shelter will secure us so, 
 
 But he will drown our cheeks in fear or woe."* 
 
 But more ; no swearer can truthfully plead as an 
 excuse for his vice that it is constitutional. Some 
 sinners there are who challenge our pity more than 
 others. Not for any adventitious circumstances 
 which determine their social condition as being more 
 degraded than that of others, though this alone is 
 enough to excite the pity of thoughtful minds, but 
 that they evince a stronger and more ungovernable 
 natural tendency to certain vices than others. If 
 they actually are not, yet they seem to be more 
 naturally depraved than others. While it does not 
 excuse their commission of certain sins, since no ex- 
 cuse for any sin by any sinner can be valid, so long 
 as the power of divine grace is available as a help 
 to its prevention, to say, that the inherent propensity 
 to them is so much stronger and more arbitrary in 
 them than in other persons, and, hence, is much less 
 easily overcome, yet, should not this fact, if not 
 soften our judgment of their guiltiness, at least ex- 
 cite in us the deeper sympathy for them ? The 
 animal, for instance, predominates in some persons 
 so largely over the rational; or, in other words, 
 
 * George Chapman. 
 
INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 143 
 
 there is such a mighty preponderance of force in 
 them towards the sensual — a disadvantage which 
 the physiologist will not explain as being due only 
 to cultivation, on the part of the individual, since 
 he knows that it is as w T ell hereditary — that if they 
 succeed in living a pure life, in face of the huge 
 opposition of their over-balanced nature, they merit 
 a reward that none on earth can give them, since no 
 parties but God and themselves are, or could be 
 cognizant of their fearful struggles between "the 
 flesh and the spirit." If, however, overcome by 
 the passion that agitates them so deeply as almost 
 to make them think that they are subjects of de- 
 moniacal possession, they fall into sin, and thus 
 bring upon themselves shame and disgrace, do they 
 not deserve, in view of the above-stated disadvan- 
 tageous fact concerning them, less censure from 
 those who do not understand them than they are 
 wont to receive? 
 
 There are some drunkards who, more than others, 
 command our deepest pity. Though their intem- 
 perance cannot be justified by any consideration, 
 yet it is far less censurable than the inebriacy of 
 other men or women. Their passion for strong 
 drink is more hereditary than incidentally and fool- 
 ishly acquired. It was in them at their birth, de- 
 scending to them as a special inheritance of evil 
 from an intemperate parent. Here and there, 
 throughout the land, there are asylums in operation 
 
144 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 where the intemperate are treated as the subjects 
 of disease. The managers of those institutions 
 formulate their treatment of the "patients" in ac- 
 cordance with the theory that intemperance is more 
 a disease of the physical than a vice chargeable on 
 the moral man. Believing that this theory rests on 
 some basis of fact, and without venturing a judg- 
 ment as to how much or how little such "patients" 
 or subjects of the physical "disease" of intemper- 
 ance are, hence, morally accountable for the malady 
 itself and all its evil results — a query which we will 
 leave to more competent casuists to answer — we 
 cannot help, therefore, but pity some, while, for 
 reasons which it would be needless here to detail, 
 we cannot help but blame other drunkards. 
 
 While, then, to some human vices there are 
 stronger and more violent natural propensities in 
 some persons than in others — a fact which, though 
 it never excuses the practice of such vices, yet may 
 reasonably be urged as sufficient to beget in us feel- 
 ings towards certain sinners more merciful than con- 
 demnatory — yet, what swearer who knows anything 
 of the organism of his own nature will plead, as ex- 
 plaining and extenuating his bad habit, that there 
 w T as born in and with him a strong, overpowering, con- 
 stitutional tendency to the vice ? The passions and 
 appetites of our human nature, the wise regulation 
 of which by the letter and spirit of revelation in- 
 sures the end of our being, are ever craving grati- 
 
IXEXCUSABLEXESS OF THE VICE. 145 
 
 fieation. In one or another, or in the combination 
 
 of one with another, silently works the excitement 
 that prompts us to every act and movement of our 
 life. Denying them their appropriate gratifications, 
 the result is discontent, restlessness, indeed, wretch- 
 edness. But whoever found it a mortification of 
 any appetite of the physical or passion of the moral 
 man to deny himself the use of profane language ? 
 Who that is not given to this habit has ever felt 
 that in abstaining from it he was sacrificing some 
 good which his nature craved in order to his happi- 
 ness ? Deeply depraved as we believe it to be, yet, 
 singularly indeed, it disowns this vice, in that it 
 never mediately or directly tempts the sinner to its 
 commission. 
 
 But further ; there are men who seem to think, 
 not merely that they cannot " easily" rid them- 
 selves of this " habit" of swearing, as before stated, 
 but that they " cannot do iV at all. How utterly 
 absurd is the notion that a person in the full posses- 
 sion of his rational faculties cannot refrain from 
 using certain terms or phrases! If you heard a 
 man repeating from day to day, and to whomsoever 
 he met, certain strange, unmeaning expressions, you 
 would consider him as being crazy. The writer not 
 unfrequently meets a man who, as a soldier in the 
 late war, made a greater sacrifice for his country 
 even than that of life. He entered the service as 
 sound, mentally, as any volunteer in the ranks. 
 7 
 
146 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 But disease, resulting from the hardships and expo- 
 sure incident to soldier-life, fastened its fangs upon 
 his brain, so that he was discharged at length, for- 
 ever bereft of the glory of man — his reason. When 
 we meet him, from time to time, it moves our deep- 
 est sympathy; nor is it any test at all of our patience, 
 to stand a while and hear him repeat the same 
 meaningless words which he obliges every one to 
 hear who gives him a moment's time. The reason 
 of our respectful attitude towards him is that he is 
 demented. 
 
 But we cannot hear with respectful patience or 
 patient respectfulness a man who, though perfectly 
 sane, will yet offer as a reason for not giving up a 
 habit of using bad language that he " cannot do it." 
 This unmanly pretext for swearing might just as 
 reasonably be urged as excusing other vices — all 
 the vices, indeed, named in the calendar of crime. 
 If a man addicted to lying should say to you, that 
 he " cannot quit" it, his excuse might excite in you 
 the feeling of ridicule, but not the belief that he 
 was telling you the truth — you would at once accept 
 such a plea as but illustrating his besetting sin. If 
 a dishonest man should say to you, that he "cannot 
 break off" from his habit of dishonesty, that he 
 must steal, or cheat, or defraud his fellow-men, you 
 might think that possibly he was a monomaniac, or 
 kleptomaniac ; but it would be far more probable to 
 your judgment of his responsibility that he "can- 
 
INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 147 
 
 not" because he will not. There are a thousand 
 things that men "cannot" do simply and only be- 
 cause they will not. 
 
 It will be found, as a rule, that the conduct of 
 such swearers as plead that they " cannot break 
 off" the habit, while in the presence of persons who 
 would be offended at their profanity — notably so 
 when in the presence of ministers of the gospel — 
 belies their unmanly excuse. Then not an indecent 
 or profane word escapes their lips. Their unexcep- 
 tional language on such occasions, while ordinarily 
 their mouths are full of cursing, is at once a tacit 
 confession on their part of the criminality of the vice 
 in question, and a proof that they can abstain from 
 it. Not till the swearer can satisfactorily prove 
 that the system of vocal organs which his Creator 
 located in him just under the brain, where reason, 
 ruling as upon a throne, might ever have it directly 
 under its eye, is nothing but an automatic machine, 
 curiously interlaced, indeed, with his muscular self, 
 yet over which he has no control, or that works 
 without his personal superintendence, can we believe 
 that he believes himself, when he says that he 
 " cannot quit swearing." 
 
 "But I never swear, unless I am angry." Is it 
 not madness indeed, when some one angers you, to 
 insult your Maker ? It is worse than that of the 
 maniac who must be bound with strong cords lest he 
 commit some act of violence, for yours is the mad- 
 
148 THE EOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 ness of a man who has not lost his reason. How 
 has He made himself a party to your petty quarrel 
 with some one, who, perhaps, is no more to blame, 
 in the matter at issue, than yourself? If there has 
 been no interference, humanly speaking, on His 
 part, with your little affairs, why should you wound 
 your Maker for some offence committed against 
 you, or indignity offered you, by man? This is as 
 irrational and wicked as to stab your father, or 
 murder your mother, because some other person 
 has hurt you. 
 
 The moral madness that actuates men, when ex- 
 cited by anger, and often when only slightly irri- 
 tated or vexed by trivial things, to blaspheme the 
 Almighty, is not less criminal than foolish. It is 
 but trifling with or making light of a terrible crime, 
 to say half-apologetically, that "under such circum- 
 stances it is instinctive to say something ." If 
 what is " instinctive " is, therefore, excusable, the 
 Master would have condemned neither the thought 
 of adultery nor the feeling of hatred ; for both 
 thought and feeling are " instinctive" to man. As 
 when a man thinks — an act which is not less an 
 impulse of nature than the act of breathing — if he 
 allows his thought to revel in the impure, he be- 
 comes guilty ; or, as when a man, who, feeling that 
 he has been injured by another — a feeling that one 
 cannot prevent when there is real occasion for it — 
 lets that feeling work in him such hatred or enmity 
 
INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 149 
 
 towards the offender as would prompt him, if he 
 had the opportunity, to take vengeance on him, 
 and who thus makes himself guilty, in effect, of 
 murder, so when a man speaks, or " says some- 
 thing," under circumstances calculated to excite his 
 anger or mere irritability of temper, if that " some- 
 thing " should be some vulgar oath or profane ex- 
 pletive, it cannot relieve him of the imputation of 
 guilt, to plead that he uttered it instinctively. It 
 is not a necessity of his nature that his anger or 
 mere vexation must have profane oral expression, 
 in order to his relief. If he really entertains this 
 notion — if he is not merely jesting when he offers 
 some such apology for his oaths and curses — he 
 had better unobservedly and heroically fight his 
 passion even till it floors him, or quietly let it burn 
 within him, as a fire in his bones, till it utterly 
 consumes him, in which event he would deserve to 
 be honored as a voluntary martyr to self-discipline, 
 than let it find expression in a prayer to the Al- 
 mighty to "damn" — himself or some other party. 
 Anger itself, blatant and unrestrained, is a folly 
 of which many a man has had reason to repent 
 with bitterest tears, when the mischiefs it occasioned 
 were found to be irreparable. The strifes and 
 feuds which it kindles and keeps burning, often be- 
 tween the nearest kin, constitute the most gloomy 
 and unhappy chapter of the history of poor, faulty 
 man. His first crime after his transgression in 
 
150 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 Eden, as recorded in scripture,* was committed in 
 a paroxysm of anger ; and the crime was murder. 
 No one ever allowed it unlimited play who did not 
 afterwards lament its indulgence. The sod of grave- 
 yards covers many a still heart which was glad to 
 find quietness, at last — rest from a great burden of 
 guilt and shame, which for a long while had quick- 
 ened its pulsations, as time and again there ap- 
 peared before the sleeper's vision some great harm 
 which, in a fit of anger, he had inflicted upon some 
 fellow-being. It is a dangerous — a very dangerous 
 venture, for a man of quick, high temper ever to 
 let his anger master him. It is a passion so apt and 
 wont, when in the ascendant, to press into its service 
 such confederates as the pistol, the stiletto, the 
 club, or any weapon or implement at hand, that, 
 shot, or stabbed, or brained, often is the victim of 
 its cruelty carried home a corpse , and, while his 
 unsuspecting family is plunged into unspeakable 
 grief, another — the family of the mad fool who 
 committed the terrible crime — is made to bear a 
 load of disgrace forever! Such have been the sad 
 issues of ungoverned anger, times without number, 
 in the history of crime. It is, therefore, strikingly 
 true, the old simile that likens an angry man to 
 " a ship sent out to sea which has the devil for its 
 pilot," 
 
 *Gen. iv. 1-17. 
 
INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 151 
 
 Besides this, violent anger injures one's self as 
 veil as the offender or enemy whom it affects one 
 way or another. It is self-consuming. The unusual 
 agitations, the extreme nervous excitements of the 
 physical man laboring under its power are destruc- 
 tive of the promise of longevity. That little conical 
 organ — the natural heart — so wonderfully keeping 
 mystic time from day to day with the varied and 
 often conflicting emotions of the moral man, some 
 times utterly refuses to act in response to his 
 phrensy who, by indulging in violent passion, abuses 
 its delicate functions. It resists, not unfrequently, 
 the tension to which it is thus submitted, even 
 to the rupture of its cords. That sudden death 
 is not always its immediate and startling issue, 
 argues nothing against the general truth that ex- 
 cessive anger is destructive of the probabilities 
 of life. Its effects upon the well-being of the 
 body, as physiologists, who have made the phe- 
 nomena of man's organism a life-long study, have 
 always declared, are serious and lasting. Persons 
 of a violent temper, as a rule, do not attain to very 
 old age ; their physical nature is too delicately con- 
 structed to endure very long the tempestuous action 
 under which it is compelled so often to labor. The 
 man, then, who is in the habit of yielding to such 
 storms of anger — storms w T hich cannot fully or satis- 
 factorily demonstrate his fury without the hoarse 
 thunder of blasphemy — should remember, if he will 
 
152 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 give to this serious matter any thought at all, that 
 he is doing this at fearful risks. In the madness of 
 passion he may commit an act which some jury shall 
 pronounce "murder." Or, under the abnormal ex- 
 citement to which the whole physical man is sub- 
 jected, he may drop down, a victim to his own 
 folly. Or he is lessening, at least, his chances of 
 life with every repetition of his freaks of madness. 
 Foolishly exhausting his vital forces by an indul- 
 gence whose effects are as certain as they are 
 serious, if he drops into the grave in comparatively 
 early life, is he not, at least in a constructive sense, 
 a suicide ? All this in face of the plain truth that 
 it is as much one's duty to live so long as possible on 
 earth, to which end the beneficent Creator has fur- 
 nished even superabundant means, as, having lived 
 rationally and scripturally well to a ripe old age, he 
 shall find it a privilege and pleasure, at last, to 
 pause at the grave and pass through its terrors into 
 the glory of immortality. 
 
 Away, then, with this plea, whether intended as 
 extenuating blasphemy, or simply as explaining its 
 occasion, that "I never swear, unless I am angry." 
 This is but indulging one folly to support another. 
 If the reader will excuse the homely figure — the 
 plaster, instead of mollifying, but inflames the 
 wound. " Anger is a fire in the heart, and swear- 
 ing is a smoke of this fire, that breaks forth at the 
 mouth : and those who are violently hurried with 
 
INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 153 
 
 this passion, do usually find nothing so ready at 
 hand as an oath: which, if they cannot be revenged 
 on him whom they conceive to have done them the 
 injury, they fling against heaven itself, and thereby 
 seem to take an impious revenge upon the Almighty 
 God." * 
 
 There can hardly be found a swearer who would 
 coolly deny the truthfulnesss of these strictures on 
 his vice. Often, in fact, when rebuked for it, he 
 admits the folly of the habit which is so destructive 
 of his interests, and which he has never soberly 
 attempted to justify. Yet it is not an uncommon 
 thing to hear such admissions qualified by some ex- 
 planation w T hich is anything but creditable to his 
 judgment of the proprieties and consistencies of 
 manly conduct or deportment. The reader as well 
 as the writer has more than once heard some such 
 confession as this from the lips of the swearer : 
 "I know that swearing is a foolish thing; it is a 
 useless habit; yet I don't mean anything by it." 
 But, like the plea of anger, is not this, too, urging 
 one folly — acting without motives, which, by the 
 way, to an intelligent, rational creature is hardly a 
 possible thing — as extenuating another ? To one 
 endowed with the powers of thought and feeling 
 and who, if his sanity were questioned, would not 
 feel at all flattered, it should be a humiliating con- 
 fession, that he finds himself saying and doing 
 
 * Bishop Hopkins. 
 
 7* 
 
154 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 certain things without meaning anything. And 
 this, too, not when he is asleep, in which condi- 
 tion of innocence and irresponsibility the wisest can 
 not be blamed for acting thus foolishly ; nor in a 
 fit of abstraction which, if there be anything at all 
 that can explain the habit of saying and doing 
 queer or strange things, might be accepted as a 
 satisfactory excuse for it, but when he is wide 
 awake and in the full, conscious, and undivided 
 possession of all his senses. 
 
 If this excuse "means anything" at all, to use 
 his own phraseology, it signifies that, in blurting 
 out irreverent expletives, now and then, or such 
 blasphemies as can have the only effect of wound- 
 ing his religious friends, if they should happen to 
 hear him, or of maddening his enemies, if it be on 
 them that he showers his curses, and, in either 
 case, of exciting the displeasure of his Maker, the 
 swearer acts without any end in view, or purpose 
 to subserve, or feeling to gratify, or any motive 
 whatever to prompt him. He intends to hurt neither 
 friend nor enemy, nor to insult his Creator. He 
 expects neither admiration for his profanity as an 
 accomplishment, nor contempt for it as a disgrace- 
 ful thing. It is neither love for God or man nor 
 hatred of either that moves him to swear. He has 
 no idea of becoming famous or infamous for such 
 impiety. And as to the business, it never occurred 
 to him whether it would help or hinder him in 
 
IXEXCUSABLEXESS OF THE VICE. 155 
 
 securing the confidence, esteem, and patronage of 
 the community where he his known. 
 
 Pretending — since, in fact, it is morally impossible 
 for a sane man to do this — pretending thus to di- 
 vest himself of all motivity, in respect of this vice, 
 your swearer who flippantly says that he " don't 
 mean anything at all" by his oaths and curses, con- 
 fesses, in effect, that he is even less than a puppet, 
 which Webster defines as a " small image in the 
 human form, moved by a wire in a mock drama ; a 
 wooden tragedian" — a definition which hardly in- 
 cludes the honest (?) swearer, since Webster's 
 " image" is made to act by a real force, communi- 
 cated by some curiously-adjusted "wire," while the 
 confessed "puppet" seriously avows that when 
 "taking God's name in vain," he is not conscious of 
 any feeling, or purpose, or motive whatever that 
 could prompt him to commit such a crime. If we 
 heard something like this from one of the beautiful 
 little dolls which, by some mechanical attachments, 
 and for the delectation of little girls, are made to 
 walk, and cry, and utter such endearing words as 
 "mamma" and "papa," we could not well question 
 its truthfulness ; for in such wooden playthings there 
 is no intelligence or reason to act upon and control 
 such parts of them as serve for organs of speech. 
 Such little, artificial human beings might be made 
 to speak many guilty words as well, and yet remain 
 entirely innocent of profanity or vulgarity, since no 
 
156 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 moral responsibility attaches to the diminutive, soul- 
 less toys. But that a real, live, intelligent, rational 
 man can thus say or do anything without "mean- 
 ing" something by it, is a proposition to which we 
 can hardly consent. 
 
 If the swearer be disposed to deny the conclu- 
 sions above stated, and from premises which he him- 
 self offers, yet, from the plea for his vice, "I don't 
 mean anything by it," and which he expects us to 
 believe, if not to commend, he certainly cannot gain- 
 say this plain inference, that he himself considers 
 his profanity as an utterly gratuitous habit. No 
 one asks him to swear. No one thanks him for his 
 vile expressions. No one pays him to act the 
 criminal. No one is pleased with his irreverence 
 except himself. No one's esteem for him is 
 strengthened by it. No one thinks it an evidence 
 of genius, or of culture, or of sociability. There is 
 absolutely nothing commendable that can be predi- 
 cated of his vice. Yet with all this as well known 
 to him as to them who hear his blasphemies, it is 
 with a coolness that bespeaks such a total lack of 
 religious sentiment as would astonish us if w T e dis- 
 covered it in an ignorant, unenlightened heathen, 
 and with a freedom of utterance that the purest 
 angels who dwell nearest His throne of thrones 
 would not indulge even in worship, that he can look 
 you full in the face and abuse the holy name so 
 shamefully that you wonder that He who is thus 
 profaned does not instantly paralyze his tongue. 
 
INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 157 
 
 The divesting one's self of all guilty intent, not 
 only in respect of swearing, but as well of other 
 sins, is a very plausible plea which, after all others 
 fail to extenuate their vices, or exonerate them from 
 blame, the profane are wont to apply as an extreme 
 unction to their suffering conscience. This might 
 be of some avail to the swearer in certain contin- 
 gencies. If he accidentally killed some one, a cor- 
 oner's jury, inquiring into the case, and finding that 
 he had no murderous intent at all, would, of course, 
 acquit him, though the act in itself is of a criminal 
 character. Or, if in a fit of anger he dealt a fatal 
 blow upon some one, some courts, holding that his 
 violent passion was a circumstance somewhat miti- 
 gative of his guilt, might show mercy enough for 
 him to save him from the gallows by instructing the 
 jury to bring in a verdict of manslaughter, or mur- 
 der in the second degree. There is a legal maxim* 
 frequently used in tribunals of justice to ascertain 
 the degree of guilt attaching to alleged criminals. 
 It is to the effect that the outer act discloses the 
 inner motive or purpose — a maxim of jurisprudence 
 which differs, not in principle, but simply in lan- 
 guage, from the scriptural rule by which we are 
 allowed to form a judgment of others' character — 
 "by their fruits ye shall know them."f It would 
 be of little use, however, to the swearer, if he were 
 
 * Exteriora acta indicant interiora animi secreta. 
 fMatt. vii. 20. 
 
158 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 arrested and judicially tried for his offence, to plead 
 that, since the character of an act is determined by 
 the intent, he, therefore, has contracted no guilt, in 
 that he intended nothing by his profanity. Some 
 shrewd lawyer would probably suggest that, since 
 he had no intent at all, either to do right or wrong, 
 when he committed it, he could not, therefore, by 
 this means, determine whether his act were guilty 
 or innocent. Stultifying himself by such a plea, 
 he would probably be informed that the law holds a 
 man to intend that which he does ; that it is only by 
 the overt act which is prima facie evidence of the 
 intent that it judges an offender; and that when it 
 uses the maxim referred to, it is never with the 
 specific view of ascertaining how very innocent the 
 alleged criminal is, but simply and only to deter- 
 termine how much guilt rests upon him. The court 
 but acts in strict accordance with the end — justice 
 — to which it is instituted, in determining thus to 
 what extent an alleged criminal is really guilty. 
 Anxious to screen the innocent, it is as well anxious 
 that the guilty shall not escape that degree of pun- 
 ishment which is due to them. That your brazen 
 swearer could offer any plea at the bar, so true, 
 touching, and impressive, that it would seem no less 
 unmerciful than unjust to convict him of, and punish 
 him for the crime of profanity is certainly very 
 doubtful, if not very absurd. 
 
 But again. It is boldly urged now and then by 
 
INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 159 
 
 swearers, who seem to have become almost stark 
 blind to the enormity of their offence, that, since it 
 does not appreciably injure the Almighty , it is 
 comparatively an innocent thing, or, at least, not 
 so grave a sin as it is represented. True, there is 
 a sense in which he is not, and cannot be injured 
 by His own creature, man. Nothing said or done 
 by the wayward, passionate, quarrelsome children 
 of men, bent, as they daily are, on saying and doing 
 a thousand things contrary to reason, justice, hon- 
 esty and righteousness — indeed to both human and 
 divine law — can ever injure Him in any one of the 
 thousand ways in which their own words and acts 
 affect themselves, or each other. Though the whole 
 race unitedly attempted the mad freak of tarnishing 
 it, yet the glory of God shall still flame out with in- 
 effable, inextinguishable brightness. Nothing what- 
 ever, transpiring on the arena of this comparatively 
 diminutive planet, though all the peoples and presses 
 of its several zones united in magnifying its import- 
 ance as exceeding all estimate, can, in any measure 
 or in any manner at all, damage his perfections. 
 High above the subtle forces that have kept it 
 whirling around its orbit for sixty centuries — above 
 the din, noise, and confusion which, as it daily 
 swings around its axis, are occasioned by the con- 
 flicting passions and contrary interests of its teem- 
 ing, fallen human beings — high above the sins, 
 crimes, transgressions and iniquities by which, in 
 
160 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 one way or another, they have drenched with blood 
 the very soil they till, and all of which are the issues 
 of their natural, inborn enmity against Him — sits the 
 Supreme Being whom, because of the impossibility 
 of worshipping Him without some name by which 
 He can be known to us, and addressed by us in 
 prayer and holy song, though it is equally impossi- 
 ble that any name at all, or title, or word, could ever 
 adequately express His fullness of every conceivable 
 excellence, we conveniently and reverently distin- 
 guish from all other beings in the universe by the 
 single, short, yet awful and appropriate monosyl- 
 lable, GOD!! And wonderful it. is — indeed infi- 
 nite — the patience and longanimity with which He 
 observes, and will continue to observe, all that trans- 
 pires on this earth, till the moment shall arrive, as 
 deeply concealed from angelic as from human 
 knowledge, when, switched from its orbit, as it were, 
 by His little finger, it shall be precipitated into ulti- 
 mate ruin — a finale which the interested universe 
 shall witness as being but a mere circumstance in 
 the development of some grand end which, though 
 He revealed it to either, yet neither angels nor men 
 could comprehend. Touching and impressive are 
 the periods in which Jean Ingelow expresses this 
 truth : 
 
 " Dread is the leisure up above, 
 The while He sits whose name is Love, 
 And waits, as ISToah did, for the dove, 
 To wit if she would fly to him . 
 
INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 161 
 
 He waits for us, while, houseless things, 
 We "beat about with bruised wings 
 On the dark floods and water-springs, 
 The ruined world, the desolate sea : 
 
 With open windows from the prime, 
 All night, all day, He waits sublime, 
 Until the fulness of the time 
 Decreed from His eternity." 
 
 But there is a sense in which it is not true, that 
 the Almighty cannot be injured by our sins. If 
 He is " Our Father"' — the most endearing charac- 
 ter in which revelation represents Him, and one 
 which His "only begotten Son" seemed very anx- 
 ious to impress upon the thought of poor fallen 
 man — He cannot, speaking after the manner of this 
 world, but be "hurt" by our wilful resistance of 
 His authority and transgressions of His commands. 
 Love is always sensitive, let it manifest itself in 
 whatever form it may. Where there is love there 
 is feeling. "Whatever other and more metaphysical 
 definition of love the psychologist may offer, yet 
 after all it is but the highest, most exquisite benev- 
 olent feeling which can actuate either God or man. 
 Nor can it be made to suffer more than when it is 
 abused, in one way or another, as it proves its 
 existence or evinces its tenderness, sympathy and 
 kindness, in the parental relation. That He, then, 
 whose "offspring" we are, and whose infinite love 
 for us so grandly proved itself on Calvary, cannot 
 as well be grieved by any sin we may commit against 
 
162 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 Him, is a suggestion which conflicts directly with 
 our conception of the character of a father. Indeed, 
 it is not possible for us to think of Him as sustain- 
 ing this relation to us, without associating with it 
 all the tenderness and love which inhere in it. 
 Had He never been hurt as "Our Father" by 
 man's disobedience, He would not have interposed 
 any scheme of salvation to prevent him from suffer- 
 ing its consequences. With the mysteries sug- 
 gested by this view of the Divine Being we have 
 nothing to do. Certainly He is " Our Father," as 
 well as "the only true God," and therefore as His 
 children, Ave owe to Him the most unquestioning 
 reverence, love, and obedience. 
 
 Besides this there is no such thing as an innocent 
 sin. Only acts which transgress neither human nor 
 divine law are "innocent" acts. If one be com- 
 paratively smaller than another in criminality, yet 
 there is no sin, however trivial it may appear, that 
 brings no guilt upon the soul. Of course, it is a 
 misnomer to call any human act "sinful" that 
 leaves no stain whatever upon the conscience ; but 
 only such acts are "innocent," or harmless. If we 
 concede, for a moment, that the distinction made by 
 the Romish church between " venial " and " mortal " 
 sins is not incorrect, yet who can believe that infinite 
 justice is not incensed nor infinite holiness opposed 
 as well by so-termed "little" as by great sins! 
 Man's opposition to the Divine will and law is as 
 
INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE, 163 
 
 direct and wilful in the least as in the most flagrant 
 transgressions. We have no more license in Scrip- 
 ture to speak an "idle word" than to profane God's 
 name ; we are no more at liberty to hate our 
 brother than to murder him ; we are no more per- 
 mitted to tell a fib about some trivial thing than to 
 perjure ourselves ; and the lustful look is as solemnly 
 forbidden as the adulterous act. He who diminishes 
 or underrates the dangerous importance even of the 
 least sin — w r ho thinks that there is any sin at all 
 which is not of enough consequence to be repented 
 of — is not wise. He classes himself with a party to 
 which Solomon applies an epithet not very flatter- 
 ing — " Fools make a mock at sin." A single mote 
 can destroy the pupil of the eye as completely as a 
 dozen. A single bullet in battle is often as deadly 
 as the steady veteran intended it to be — it kills his 
 enemy outright, more than which twenty, equally 
 well aimed, could not do. It is consummate folly, 
 then, for any one to continue in the indulgence of 
 any sin, under the dangerous conceit that it is a 
 " little" or "innocent" thing. And the consum- 
 mate folly of the sinner never appears more amaz- 
 ing than when he coolly pronounces profanity an 
 "innocent" thing — profanity , w T hich, as some one 
 truly said, "is the very spirit and core of all evil, 
 the quintessence of ungodliness." 
 
 There are other excuses or apologies which have 
 been urged, as extenuating the indulgence of this 
 
164 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 vice, but which we have not the space here to notice. 
 We will end this chapter, then, with the general 
 statement that there are no possible circumstances 
 that can either justify the commission of sin, or, 
 after its commission, excuse it. Real repentance 
 confesses, but never pleads anything as extenuating 
 it. It is too blinded with tears to discover any 
 mitigating circumstances ; all it sees is guilt. It is 
 too lowly-minded and broken-hearted to attempt any 
 specious justification of the sins over which it weeps. 
 It leaves the determination of the query, whether 
 much or little guilt has been contracted by the sins 
 of a lifetime, entirely to Him against whom they 
 have been committed, content to know that the Al- 
 mighty will not "pervert judgment," and to believe 
 that though they " be as scarlet " yet He shall make 
 them " white as snow ; though they be red like 
 crimson, they shall be as wool." If it be prone, 
 now and then, to magnify the guilt it laments, it is 
 not because it is blind to whatever differences of 
 character and proportion exist between the sins that 
 man commits. We regard this as an evidence, not 
 of insincerity or foolishness, but of its genuineness. 
 For, if ever the enormity of sin appears at all — 
 " little," as well as great sins — it is when the mind, 
 stirred hereto by the convicting agency of the Holy 
 Spirit, attempts a contrast between God's infinite 
 holiness and the deep guiltiness of man. 
 
 If repentance, thus, is prone to see not less but 
 
IXEXCUSABLENESS OF THE VICE. 165 
 
 more guilt than really attaches to the soul, by rea- 
 son of sin, yet it is one of the truest and most un- 
 failing signs of impenitence, that it not only sees no 
 guilt at all, but it apologizes for sin ; it attempts to 
 explain it away ; it frames the most empty pretexts 
 for indulging it; it even urges, at times, the very 
 weakness and proneness of man to sin, as consti- 
 tuting, if not a sufficient justification for its commis- 
 sion, yet an extenuation so tender and touching, 
 that God eventually will make no account of poor 
 man's sins, but save him, whether he complies with 
 His revealed conditions of salvation or not. This, 
 indeed, has been man's folly ever since his fall from 
 the Divine favor. Adam evinced not the first sign 
 of contrition, but not a little real moral cowardice, 
 in criminating Eve. The frankness, candor, and 
 honesty of her confession — " The serpent beguiled 
 me, and I did eat" — appear in striking contrast 
 with his unmanliness. Instead of admitting un- 
 qualifiedly the fact of his disobedience, he offers an 
 excuse for it ; he puts all the blame of his sin upon 
 Eve, and even intimates that his Maker ought not 
 to have tried him thus by giving him a partner — 
 "And the man said, the woman whom thou gavest 
 to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did 
 eat."* And from that day to this, man has always 
 been trying to excuse his sins. Whether his trans- 
 
 * Gen. iii. 11-13. 
 
1G6 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 gression of the divine law be great or trivial, bis 
 evil genius can always suggest some excuse for it. 
 There is not a sin or crime on the full pages which 
 the recording angel is scoring against the children 
 of men, from the assassination of an emperor down 
 to the comparatively light offence which the law 
 terms "petty larceny," or the little "fib" which a 
 child tells to escape the rod threatened for some 
 other trivial thing, for which they have not some 
 pretended reason, or specious extenuation. And, 
 though their self-vindication cannot absolve them 
 from the accusations simply of their own conscience, 
 yet they make as if they really thought that it 
 would be sufficient to clear them entirely at the bar 
 of God. All sin is, indeed, inexcusable ; yet it is 
 a singular thing, that more excuses than for any 
 other sin that man commits are offered for the most 
 inexcusable of all — profanity. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ON REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 
 
 r^vEEPLY reverential was the feeling of a poor, 
 ~*-^ untutored freedman, on being told what the 
 letters G, 0, D, spelled. The infamous law which 
 prevented the slave-owner from teaching him, and 
 the slave from learning to read, having been an- 
 nulled by the most illustrious act which it is the 
 privilege of history to record of our almost peerless 
 Lincoln — the "Act of Emancipation" — it was re- 
 marked by many who had opportunities of observing 
 its effects upon the liberated bondmen, that they 
 manifested the most intense anxiety to learn how to 
 read. An old preacher, who was more pious than 
 learned, had advanced so far in orthography that he 
 could begin to spell w T ords of three letters. Hap- 
 pening one day, for the first time, upon the awful 
 name by which the Supreme Being is most gener- 
 ally known, he slowly spelled it out, G, 0, D, and 
 w 7 as told by his instructor that that was the name of 
 the One he sometimes preached about. 
 
 The effect upon his religious nature was almost 
 electrical. Lifting up his hands in unaffected sur- 
 prise, and with a simplicity that was charming, in 
 spite of, his physical degradation, he asked, in a 
 (167) 
 
168 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 tone expressive of his anxiety not to be misinformed, 
 " Is this the name of God, and that the way it looks 
 when printed?" On being assured that it was, the 
 tears began to stream down his furrowed face, and 
 
 " Weeping out the gladness of his pent-up heart," 
 it was with a pathos seldom, if ever, equalled by 
 the professional actor, that he exclaimed, " Oh, 
 blessed day ! God has permitted these old eyes to 
 see to read His name !" 
 
 It is related in "Cope's Anecdotes" that "a 
 certain American planter had a favorite domestic 
 negro, who always stood opposite to him when wait- 
 ing at table. His master often took the name of 
 God in vain, when the negro immediately made a 
 low and solemn bow. On being asked why he did 
 so, he replied, that he never heard that great name 
 mentioned but it filled his whole soul with rever- 
 ence and awe. Thus, without offence, he cured his 
 master of a criminal and pernicious custom." 
 
 Such veneration for the Supreme Being was not 
 superstitious. It sprung from a true apprehension 
 of the Divine Existence, independently of such aids 
 to belief as logical formulas afford the educated, 
 cultured scholar. It was not an issue of "the be- 
 lief of what is absurd, or belief without evidence," 
 which is superstition, but of what has been defined 
 as " knowledge " — " a clear and certain perception 
 f * * * truth and fact." There is many a 
 one to whom scholarly processes of proving the Di- 
 
REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 169 
 
 vine Existence, or labored methods of demonstrating 
 that this grand world did not and could not create 
 itself, are entirely superfluous. Without great men- 
 tal acquirements, or capacities, yet with a strong 
 natural sense of the fitness of things, their belief 
 that there is a God is not less admirable, in that it 
 is formed in ignorance of scholarly methods, than 
 theirs who believe the solemn truth, mostly because 
 their syllogisms compel it. They do not need the 
 help of artificial formulas to reach the belief that 
 the] e is a Supreme Being whose very name ought 
 to excite in them devotional feeling ; such belief in 
 them is the result of the simple, unartificial reason- 
 ing of Nature herself.* If the good man who was 
 asked, "how he .could satisfy himself as to the ex- 
 
 * "There seems to be a primitive faith on this subject, 
 which can only be traced to the same origin with the mind 
 itself. It is congenial and native to the soul to believe in 
 God. Men may work themselves into an opposite belief ; 
 they may at last resign themselves to Atheism, either in 
 consequence of the extreme difficulty and darkness of the 
 subject, or owing to moral causes ; but none begin with 
 this. The first faith is invariably theistic, not atheistic. 
 With interminable and wide differences mother respects, 
 there is a marvelous concurrence of sentiment up to a cer- 
 tain point, among all nations and ages. That there is a Di- 
 vinity somewhere in this great universe, that there is some 
 object of worship and obedience, is an original belief, da- 
 ting from the constitution of the soul itself." — The Christ 
 of History. By John Young, A. M., Part IV., Chap. III., 
 pp. 122, 123. 
 
170 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 istence of a God?" and answered, "by simply open- 
 ing my eyes," was not a scholar, neither was he, as 
 his answer proves, a fool. 
 
 The veneration occasioned in the one case above 
 mentioned, by the mere sight of the name, God, 
 and in the other by the mere hearing of it, even 
 though uttered profanely, was but the feeling which 
 instinctively possesses and controls one to wdiom 
 God is, as well an object of devotion as a subject of 
 belief — such easy, indifferent, ineffectual belief as 
 neither constrains the nominal theist to love and 
 serve Him, nor restrains him, when he finds himself 
 so disposed, even from blaspheming His name. He 
 who fervently worships, or profoundly venerates, 
 the Divine Being, knows that it is not a fiction 
 which thus affects him — a fiction conceived by some 
 poetic genius to play upon the religious sensibili- 
 ties of his nature — but a great, solemn fact, which, 
 though too mysterious ever to be fully understood, 
 is, nevertheless, a fact as real, and almost as palpa- 
 ble, as is the presence of the wonderful material 
 universe about him. 
 
 "Deny Him * * * all is mystery besides ! 
 Millions of mysteries ! each darker far 
 Than that thy wisdom would, unwisely, shun. 
 If weak thy faith, why chose the harder side ? 
 We nothing know, but what is marvelous ; 
 Yet what is marvelous we can't believe."* 
 
 * Edward Young. 
 
REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 171 
 
 The unlettered Mohammedan, happening on a 
 slip of written or printed paper, carefully picks it 
 up and lays it aside, lest, unknown to him, it may 
 have upon it the holy name, "God." He would 
 not trample upon it. He would not allow the winds 
 to toy with it, nor should it be exposed to the 
 wanton eye of any passer-by. Reverently, then, 
 he touches it, folds it up, and lays it in some secret 
 place. Admitting that this amounts to superstition, 
 yet of the two extremes, who would not prefer the 
 Moslem's profound appreciation of the holy name to 
 his irrational profanity who, while he would resent 
 the charge of atheism, yet, by his blasphemy, in- 
 sults at once his own reason and his Maker ? 
 
 It is wonderful; it is incomparable — the name 
 above all other names, God ! Though but a mono- 
 syllable — one of the shortest of human language,* 
 and pronounceable in a moment — yet it is of awful 
 significance. Not in itself, as defining Him to 
 whom it exclusively belongs, since no word, or name, 
 or title, or any possible combination of terms can do 
 this, but it distinguishes or ranks Him, who will be 
 spoken to by it only in prayer or song, as above all 
 
 * It is a singular thing, that in almost every known lan- 
 guage the name of God is spelled with four letters, con- 
 stituting, in most instances, a dissyllable, excepting in the 
 Anglo-Saxon, which uses but three, which form a mono- 
 syllable ; but even of these three letters one must be dupli- 
 cated, if we wish to express the literal sense of the name, 
 God, which is good. 
 
172 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 minor and dependent entities in the universe. The 
 mystery of mysteries that the name veils is, that 
 infinity belongs to Him — a distinction that can be- 
 long only to One being. Waiving all remark on 
 the phenomena concealed in the nature of the only 
 Infinite One — phenomena which have been chal- 
 lenging the intensest inquiries of the highest angels 
 ever since He beckoned them into being, and will be 
 ours, as well as their subject of profoundest thought 
 through all the interminable future — how satisfac- 
 tory is this suggestion of His name, that it designates 
 a real, distinctive Being! u lie is" whom we call 
 " God," though we cannot see Him with the natural 
 eye, nor hear Him with the natural ear, nor touch 
 Him with the natural hand — a fact which to us is 
 not displeasing, but rather agreeable. For we can 
 conceive of no greater calamity to the human mind 
 than to have all the obstructions removed, all the 
 hindrances taken away, which now prevent us from 
 immediately apprehending the Deity. Oh, the lux- 
 ury of revelling in the mysterious ! 
 
 In face of the impossibility that we can ever en- 
 joy an adequate understanding of His perfections, 
 from a few objects visibly near us, and a larger 
 number telescopically seen, we are now inferring 
 what He is who made them, and of whose name we 
 are jealous that it may be honored. Descending 
 into the sea as deeply as we can sink ; whirling up- 
 ward till we reach, and, attempting to count, are 
 
REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOB. 173 
 
 overwhelmed by the number and blinded by the 
 brilliance of the stars ; burrowing into the earth al- 
 most far enough to be scorched by the heat of its in- 
 ternal fires ; sailing daringly towards either pole 
 till its everlasting frosts, affecting our very life- 
 currents, gently induce us to lie down and sleep — 
 venturing, thus, as far into the material universe as 
 the impetus of our religious enthusiasm can carry 
 us, everything that receives from us only a hasty 
 glance, or years of patient analysis, helps us a little 
 to a more humbling and devotional appreciation of 
 His incomprehensibility whom the poet thus finely 
 apostrophizes : 
 
 "God! God! word written on the waves, impressed 
 Upon fair Nature's universal breast — 
 Wafted by every breeze, and borne along 
 By every motion that lias sense or song — 
 Splendent above and beautiful below, 
 The soul of all the universe art Thou !"* 
 
 True, it is but little — the knowledge of God 
 which can thus be gathered from the illustrated 
 folio of creation. And with all that can be added 
 to it from the luminous pages of Scripture, it is still 
 very little as compared with the infinite fullness of 
 the Godhead — so very little that we can invent no 
 simile that shall convey a clear idea of the immense 
 disproportion ; yet these precious morsels — crumbs 
 of "bread from heaven" — as we taste them, but 
 
 * Sir John Bo wring. 
 
174 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 whet our appetite for more — more ! They are quite 
 too satisfying to be refused because we cannot en- 
 joy all the fullness of God. Why should we wish 
 to reach down and dip from the secretest corners of 
 the spring — recesses concealed far beneath us — 
 when water clear, sweet, refreshing, and full enough 
 to quench our thirst, is flowing over its edges — 
 water of which not the least cheery property is, 
 that it is always flowing! 
 
 We need offer no apology for thus magnifying His 
 Being, for the vindication of whose name against 
 the abuses to which it is so commonly submitted, 
 we almost covet the tongue of angels. They may 
 be using, in their devotion, some other name than 
 God — some name known only to themselves, and 
 too holy to be revealed to us, or which could appro- 
 priately be used only where sin is not, and never 
 has been known. But in our human worship here 
 on earth — our prayers and songs here, where sin is 
 forever troubling us ; where it rises up with us in 
 the morning, and tracks us all day long, and, when 
 we lie down again at night, stalks before us again 
 in our very dreams ; here, where it ever disturbs 
 our peace, and makes us, at times, so afraid that we 
 shall never reach the gates of heaven to hear the 
 blessed say, "Come in!" or that, at last, we shall 
 be lost, the Name to which clings our trembling 
 hope of final salvation, and, as suggesting the only 
 possible means by which it can be realized, our faith 
 
REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 175 
 
 fastens itself as tenaciously as the ivy clasps the 
 storm-beaten oak, is "God . . . in Christ." 
 
 Yet some not only will not reverence, but do 
 actually blaspheme that name ! How shocking to 
 our religious sensibilities ! What barefaced iniquity ! 
 What shameless indecency ! If they would but let 
 it alone! Let it alone, if they will not use it in 
 prayer or sacred song; let it alone, if it serves them 
 no worthier purpose than to point a jest, or give the 
 semblance of earnestness to idle, empty conversa- 
 tion; let it alone, if it does not awe them into the 
 attitude of merely common respect; let it alone, if 
 they will not use it reverently — oh, if they would 
 but let the Xame alone ! Like the "man with an 
 unclean spirit" in the gospel, by their coarse, blas- 
 phemous language, they pray to Him, in effect, " Let 
 us alone; what have we to do with Thee?"* And 
 He will, if they keep on bandying His name from 
 mouth to mouth, as if it were of no more signifi- 
 cance than a shuttlecork. He will yet "cause 
 them to know" by His "hand and His might" that 
 His "Xame is the Lord."| 
 
 It belongs to our object of worship. When we 
 knelt in childhood at her knee who taught us the 
 language of devotion, among the first petitions that 
 Ave tried to lisp to Him, who " out of the mouth of 
 
 *Marki.23, 24. 
 
 f Jer. xvi. 21. 
 
176 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 babes and sucklings hath perfected praise,"* was 
 " Hallowed be Thy name /"f As we grew towards 
 manhood, daily needing His interposition to prevent 
 us, as a youth, from venturing into paths that end 
 in destruction, the petition that most suggested 
 thought of our own littleness and weakness, and of 
 His majesty and mightiness who is pleased that we 
 ask Him for help, was, u Hallowed be Thy name!" 
 And now that we have crossed the meridian of life, 
 and our shadow begins to lens-then, reminding us 
 that the evening draweth nigh, the feeling of rever- 
 ence for the Supreme Being, begotten and nurtured 
 in the morning of life, is stronger than ever. The 
 old petition, spoken slowly, " Hallowed be Thy 
 name!" sounds as softly and rhythmically as when 
 we uttered, or heard it repeated, in the days of our 
 youth, while the deep significance attaching to it, 
 which the study of theology in our manhood under 
 the illuminating influence of the Holy Spirit has 
 developed, bends us lower than ever, as we continue 
 daily to repeat it — u Halloived be Thy name!" 
 The worship which angels offer Him may be more 
 profound than ours — worship which may not in- 
 clude the element of prayer, so far, at all events, as 
 it is an expression of pressing want or need — yet it 
 is scarcely more acceptable to Him, as from time to 
 time they cry " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Al- 
 
 *Matt. xxi. 16. 
 f Matt. vi. 9. 
 
REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 177 
 
 mighty, which was, and is, and is to come!" than 
 is the petition which ascends to Him daily from His 
 humble saints on earth, " Halloived be Thy name!" 
 He is our object of worship, dear reader, w T hom 
 the profane abuse. As even a heathen, if some 
 daring wretch spat upon his wooden image, would 
 resent the profane act, so let us cultivate deep, in- 
 telligent sensitiveness as to the honor of the true 
 God. 
 
 Addison, who was an ornament at once of religion 
 and literature, has recorded in the Spectator , that 
 the Hon. Robert Boyle, an eminent scholar of the 
 seventeenth century, and " of whom," says another 
 distinguished writer, "it is difficult to say whether 
 his piety as a Christian, or his fame as a philoso- 
 pher, was most remarkable," never mentioned the 
 name of God " without a pause and visible stop in 
 his discourse;" as if, on its recurrence to his eye, 
 or thought, he heard, at the instant, His awful voice, 
 demanding silent and adoring recognition of, and 
 attention to, His sovereignty — 
 
 " Be still, and know that I am God !"* 
 
 The ancient Jews were distinguished for their 
 veneration of the Supreme Being. So profound was 
 their sense of His title, Jehovah, that they felt 
 themselves scarcely at liberty, if not actually for- 
 bidden, to repeat it, even in the solemnities of wor- 
 
 * Psa. xlvi. 10. 
 8* 
 
178 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 ship. It was a constant rule with their scribes never 
 to write it without first washing and wiping their 
 pens. It is no less suggestive of serious thought 
 on the sin of profanity than interesting as a record 
 of biblical history, to notice the occasion of the Mo- 
 saic law which demanded such deep reverence for 
 the Deity, and the manner in which it was recorded 
 for the consideration of succeeding ages. 
 
 A striking circumstance in the instance of blas- 
 phemy recorded in Lev. xxiv. 10-23, is that 
 the name of the daring sinner is not mentioned. 
 From the peculiar phraseology by which he is iden- 
 tified — "the son of an Israelitish woman, whose 
 father w^as an Egyptian," " this son of the Israelitish 
 woman," "the Israelitish woman's son," and, in 
 parenthesis, ("and his mother's name was Shelo- 
 mith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan") 
 — it appears that, if the profane criminal expected 
 notoriety as one of the issues of his bold transgres- 
 sion — a motive w T hich not unfrequently actuates men 
 even to the vilest deeds — the sacred historian in- 
 tended that he should be disappointed. He seems 
 anxious that, while the identity of the w T retch should 
 be so plainly described, that no Israelite then living 
 could be in doubt as to the real person who was 
 condemned for blasphemy — yet, having made it in- 
 famous, his name, therefore, should not descend to 
 posterity with the distinction of being written in 
 Scripture. Manifesting thus his sense of the infamy 
 
REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 179 
 
 of this shameless swearer, the inspired historian at 
 the same time presents a very significant expression 
 of his own deep veneration for the name which had 
 been profaned. As if it were too holy to be men- 
 tioned at all, especially in an instance of blasphe- 
 mous use of it, he omits it entirely in his faithful 
 record — "And the Israelitish woman's son blas- 
 phemed the name of the LORD* and cursed." 
 In the law, also, of blasphemy which was communi- 
 cated to Moses in solemn conference with the Al- 
 mighty, as consequent on this flagrant instance of 
 profanity, the ineffable name is omitted — "And he 
 that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall 
 surely be put to death, and all the congregation 
 shall certainly stone him : as well the stranger as he 
 that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the 
 name of the LORD, shall be put to death." 
 
 Unreasonably severe as this law may appear to 
 some minds, constituting profanity, as it does, a 
 capital offence, though for the people whom it was 
 intended to affect, and the end to which it was en- 
 acted, it may be proved not unreasonable, yet, who 
 that attempts in his serious hours to comprehend the 
 mysterious glories of the Infinite One, whom, if His 
 name is to be spoken at all, we very becomingly 
 designate by the short yet awful monosyllable, 
 "God," cannot w T ish that a greater degree of such 
 
 *The italicized words "of the Lord" were supplied by 
 the translators to complete the sense of the original text. 
 
180 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 reverence for Him as those ancient Jews conscienti- 
 ously cultivated were instilled into the flippant minds 
 of the generations of the present age ? To read, 
 that "long before the birth of Christ, the Jews un- 
 derstood the law," above quoted, '/as if it pro- 
 hibited them from uttering the name, Jehovah, 
 which the true God had given Himself, as His 
 nomen propriwm, on any other than solemnly- 
 sacred, or, at any rate, sacred occasions ; and, of 
 course, from ever naming Him at all in common 
 life,"* — a law which they most scrupulously 
 observed ; and, further, that " the Jews were ac- 
 customed wherever they found the word Jehovah 
 in the Bible," either to pause a moment and silently 
 pass over it, or "to pronounce, instead of it, the 
 name Adonai, or Lord," — to read of, and contrast, 
 such deep reverence in the old Jewish mind for the 
 Supreme Being, with the irreverence and profanity 
 of this nineteenth century of the Christian world, 
 impresses the devout soul with a painful sense, if 
 not of a real deterioration of man's religious nature, 
 yet certainly of the unwelcome fact, that, with all 
 the boasted enlightenment of our gospel times, and 
 all the advances that have been made in theological 
 science, and all our superior helps to this end, yet 
 the religious sentiment inherent in man has not 
 developed very largely towards perfection. 
 
 * Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, Sir John David 
 Michaelis. 
 
REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 181 
 
 It is no objection to the inculcation of a deeper 
 reverence for the Supreme Being, that the name, 
 God, by which He is now ordinarily addressed in 
 worship, and which is so very frequently, shame- 
 lessly and generally "taken in vain" by the 
 thoughtless, may be less significant of His nature 
 than the " philosophically sublime and expressive 
 title," Jehovah, whose true pronunciation, kept so 
 long by the Jews as a mysterious secret, has 
 entirely passed out even of their own memory. It 
 is possible, as before hinted, that He has a name, 
 or title, which has never yet been pronounced at 
 all, or heard, on earth — a name of such wonderful 
 depth of meaning and impressiveness as to be unre- 
 vealable in the arbitrary characters of human alpha- 
 bets, and, hence, utterable only by angelic tongues. 
 Be this as it may, yet the name, " God," known to 
 us, expresses our highest conceptions of the In- 
 finite : it calls out and gives direction to lonorino;s 
 and aspirations which can never be met save in 
 Himself ; it acts upon and soothes the mental and 
 moral affections of our nature, which would forever 
 occasion us unhappiness were there no God of whom 
 they can take hold, and in whom they can find 
 quietness and rest. We are shocked, therefore, 
 beyond expression, when we hear this name pro- 
 faned. We are wounded more than if some keen 
 blade had been thrust into our flesh, for we feel the 
 injury in our very soul. 
 
182 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 There are ministers of the Word whose very fre- 
 quent and unnecessary repetition of the awful names 
 of the Almighty, in their prayers and preaching, 
 borders closely on profanity. On being asked by 
 her mother where she was going, a little girl once 
 replied, "I'm going, mamma, to see our minister, to 
 tell him not to sivear so in the pulpit ." Though a 
 mere child, yet it startled her sense of reverence to 
 hear the solemn appellations so often and needlessly 
 reiterated, by which it is possible that the Su- 
 preme Being may be addressed without being wor- 
 shipped. To use His loftiest titles in the act is not 
 consonant to the idea or nature of prayer — a state- 
 ment which needs no other authority to prove its 
 correctness than the " Sermon on the Mount," where 
 the Master, by repeating the w r ord so often, seems 
 anxious to impress upon His hearers the truth that 
 prayer is nothing more nor less than simply to 
 "ask" our "Father in heaven" for such things as 
 we need.* No earthly father on whom, for one 
 reason or another, the world has conferred divers 
 distinctions, expects his children, if they desire some 
 favor of him, and approach him with that end in 
 view, to enumerate and emphasize in a formal man- 
 ner, all those distinctions and titles before he will 
 listen to them and grant their request. Such a 
 filial address would be but a travesty on the familiar 
 intercourse of parents and children. Based on the 
 
 *Matt. vii. 7-11. 
 
REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 183 
 
 tenor of the entire New Testament revelation, it is 
 our conviction that the Supreme Being is not as well 
 pleased with, if He does not really refuse to hear, 
 the lofty phraseology — the high-sounding terms — 
 which some use in their prayers to Him, as with 
 simpler language — such plain, simple language as 
 an artless child, desiring something of his father, 
 would naturally use. 
 
 It w^ould, perhaps, offend those ministers who are 
 given to this habit, to call it sinful. Nevertheless, 
 we kindly submit, that a thoughtful examination of 
 its terms, a calm, deliberate, and, withal, devotional 
 inquiry into its breadth of meaning, will, doubtless, 
 lead them to see, and prompt them honestly to con- 
 fess, that it is a violation at least of the spirit, if not 
 of the letter, of the third commandment. 
 
 The most appropriate and endearing name that 
 we can use, in our devotions to the Supreme Being, 
 is clearly revealed in the gospel. Certainly the 
 example alone of our " Elder Brother" is sufficiently 
 authoritative as to the phraseology that ought to be 
 used both in our preaching and in our prayers. 
 Aside from that, however, He has given us a posi- 
 tive precept, touching the appellation by which He 
 would have us to speak to our Maker. The first 
 time " He opened His mouth" to instruct His dis- 
 ciples in Christian doctrine and duty, with other 
 counsels, He told them how to pray, " After this 
 manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father who art in 
 
184 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 heaven,"* etc. No one knew, and no one could 
 know the Supreme Being as intimately and fully as 
 "His only begotten Son." It was the burden of 
 His ministry on earth to make known God unto 
 men, And it is remarkable that in all His recorded 
 discourses, conversations, and prayers, the name 
 which He used with but comparatively few excep- 
 tions to designate Him of whose " glory " He was 
 "the brightness," and of whose "person" "the 
 express image," was " Father." The first expres- 
 sion recorded as having been uttered by Him when 
 a mere child contains the sweet name — " Wist ye 
 not that I must be about my Father's business ?"f 
 And the last prayer that he sent heavenward amidst 
 the agonies of the cross was thus offered, " Father, 
 into thy hands I commend my spirit "J "Some- 
 times, when referring to God he makes use of the 
 more personal and intimate designation, ' My Father,' 
 4 My Father's Kingdom." || < My Father hath ap- 
 pointed me.'§ ' My Father worketh hitherto.'^" 
 6 It is my Father that honoreth me.'** But much 
 oftener, generally indeed, he adopts the more com- 
 prehensive word, and speaks of God as the Father, 
 ' The Father hath life in himself.' ff ' Neither in 
 this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, ye shall wor- 
 
 *Matt.vi. 9. fLukeii. 49. 
 
 J Luke xxiii. 46. |[ Mat. xxvi. 29. 
 
 § Luke xxii. 29. 1 John v. 17. 
 
 ** John viii. 54. ft John v. 26. 
 
 1 
 
REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 185 
 
 ship the Father.' * ' He that hath learned of the 
 Father.' f 4 Not that any man hath seen the 
 Father.' J 'I will pray the Father. || 'What- 
 soever ye shall ask of the Father.' § Addressing 
 ing not any select class, but all those indiscriminately 
 who listened to his teaching, he represented God as 
 the Father. "^[ Both by precept, then, and ex- 
 ample are we taught, by one whose instructions are 
 infallible, what name it is most becoming for us to 
 use when we take occasion either to speak of Him 
 in ordinary religious conversation, or discourse, or 
 to Him, in the privilege of prayer. We confess 
 that we lack in appreciation of the eloquence of a 
 prayer filled with repetitions of the awful titles of 
 the Divine Being. Far more impressive and accor- 
 dant with the ends contemplated by the act, is the 
 simplicity of language, manner and tone evinced by 
 a loving, trustful child, who has not the shadow of 
 a doubt but that his father, if he thinks it best, will 
 give him what he wants. Says an able writer, 
 " This little word ' Father ' lisped by faith in prayer, 
 by a real Christian, exceeds the eloquence of De- 
 mosthenes, Cicero, and all the famous speakers in 
 the world." It is the human name of the Divine 
 
 * John iv. 21. f John vi. 45. 
 
 X John vi. 46. || John xiv. 16. 
 
 g John xv. 16 ; Vide, also, John xvi. 25 , John xvi. 28 ; 
 Acts i. 4 ; Acts i. 7. 
 
 % Young's Christ of History, Part IV, Chap, iii., p. 141. 
 
186 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 Being — a name by which, laying aside, as it were, 
 the mysterious glories that invest His throne as 
 " the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only 
 wise God," he becomes not barely approachable, 
 but He relates Himself so closely and tenderly to 
 man, that not one of the whole race, encouraged 
 hereto by our great mediator, need ever hesitate to 
 " come unto " Him. 
 
 And it is scarcely less amazing that man should 
 abuse it than that God should manifest such infinite 
 condescension toward him. It is base ingratitude 
 that any one of our race should slight Him at all, in 
 less offensive ways ; but that any one should open 
 his throat and blasphemously belch forth His name 
 in horrid imprecations for His vengeance is simply 
 devilish. It is a name of deepest moment to us in 
 all the emergencies of our human life. None has 
 stored away in secret closets within such viands as 
 will afford him refreshment, whenever he may have 
 occasion to unlock the closet and bring them out — 
 oil to mollify the wounds he receives as he stumbles 
 along through life, and wine to strengthen him 
 when he grows weak and enliven him when he is 
 despondent — oil and wine that shall so heal and re- 
 cuperate his wounded moral nature, suffering under 
 accumulated troubles, that he shall never fall into 
 despair. None finds in his nature a well that never 
 gives out — a Avell out of which, time and again, he 
 may draw sufficient supplies for his thirst, so that 
 
REVERENCING THE NAME OF GOD. 187 
 
 he never need take his pitcher to another fountain. 
 None — none has resources enough in himself to 
 meet and battle with the ills of this life without 
 looking out of and beyond himself for sympathy and 
 help from some other source. No human soul is 
 naturally so heroic that it never quails before the 
 onset of huge troubles ; no human heart beats too 
 stoutly to be disturbed at all by untoward things. 
 Such independence is the purest fiction ; worldly 
 philosophy aspires to but never attains it ; it is the 
 dream of poetry inspired by no divine muse. It 
 reminds us of the assurance, self-sufficiency, and 
 stately gait of the demented one who imagines him- 
 self a king. 
 
 And so it comes, that, utterly without resources 
 of our own, and so suspicious — perhaps, too often 
 — of the sympathy and proffered help of our fellow- 
 men, that we are ready to exclaim with Job, 
 
 7 J 7 
 
 "miserable comforters are ye all," our faith, in its 
 many and great needs, so eagerly lays hold of " the 
 name of the God of Jacob."* Because we find 
 Him to whom it belongs so willing and " able to do" 
 for us, in all our straits, " exceeding abundantly 
 above all that we ask or think," we will "praise the 
 name of God with a song, and will magnify him 
 with thanksgiving."! Moses says that His name, 
 "THE LORD THY GOD" is "glorious and fear- 
 
 *Ps. xx. 1. fPs. lxix. 30. 
 
188 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 ful."* And David, that it is " holy and reverend ;"f 
 and that "glory is due unto it;"} and that He 
 "rideth upon the heaven by his name JAH ;"|| and 
 that it "shall endure forever;" it "shall be con- 
 tinued as long as the sun."§ He declares that it 
 "alone is excellent;"^! and prays that it may " be 
 magnified forever."** He touchingly asks if it is 
 to be "blasphemed forever ?"ff and pitifully calls 
 them "foolish people "$$ who are given to this 
 terrible sin. With him, and with all His creatures 
 whom the Supreme Being hath made sufficiently 
 competent, first to "believe that He w," and then 
 " a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him," we 
 are ever ready to exclaim," blessed be His glorious 
 name for ever; and let. the whole earth be filled 
 with His glory; Amen, and Amen!"||| 
 
 ' ' Thy great name, 
 In all its awfnl brevity, doth bless 
 The tongue that uses it ; for me, 
 I ask no higher office than to fling 
 My spirit at Thy feet, and cry Thy name, 
 God ! through eternity ! "§§ 
 
 *Deut. xxviii. 58. f Ps. cxi. 9. 
 
 ^.Ps. xxix. 2., Ps. xcvi. 8. ||Ps. lxviii. 4. 
 
 §Ps. xxii. 17. IPs. cxlviii. 13. 
 
 **2 Sam. vii. 26. ffPs. lxxiv. 10. 
 
 ttPs. lxxiv. 18. 1 ||Ps. lxii. 19. 
 §§ Festus. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 
 
 "YTTE have often been deeply impressed on read- 
 * ' ing, what any fair critic Trill admit is one of 
 the sublimest productions of poetic genius. It is 
 said that on being brought to the notice of the Em- 
 peror of Japan, he was so profoundly affected by its 
 transparent excellence, that he ordered its transla- 
 tion into the Japanese language, and embroidered 
 in gold, to be hung up in the temple of Jeddo. It 
 is also said to have been translated into the Chinese 
 and Tartar languages, and written on a piece of 
 rich silk that is suspended in the imperial palace at 
 Pekin. 
 
 It is worthy of such royal honors. There are 
 but few writings, other than the Scriptures, that can 
 quicken our apprehension and deepen our appreci- 
 ation of the sublime truth of the Divine Existence 
 more than this. The Book of God itself must have 
 been scanned most industriously and devotionally 
 by its distinguished author, the Russian poet and 
 statesman, Gabriel Romanowitch Derzhaven, when 
 composing it, for it is brimful of Scripture. A 
 patient analysis of the poem will satisfy the reader, 
 not only that, as a whole, it finely harmonizes with 
 (189) 
 
190 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 the spirit and genius of revelation, but that many of 
 its periods are really what might be termed rhyth- 
 mical reproductions of its very phraseology. There 
 are parts of it so very like the utterances of the 
 ancient seers, that one is almost led to believe that 
 the author penned his heroic measures under the 
 same divine afflatus that affected their pens. 
 
 Were any apology needed for its reproduction 
 here, it would be the end contemplated by this 
 essay — the correction of the fearful vice of pro- 
 fanity and the deepening in men's minds of that 
 lingering veneration for the Supreme Being which, 
 if carefully cultivated, will issue in their ultimate 
 enjoyment of the highest bliss of which He has made 
 them capable. Our only fear in transferring it to 
 these pages is, that it will not be read because it is 
 "poetry," though it should not be forgotten that 
 some of the finest conceptions of the Deity are con- 
 veyed to us through this very medium in the Old 
 Testament revelation. Exalting, as it does, the 
 majesty of the Almighty, suggesting the profound- 
 est truths which, though beyond the compass of our 
 understanding, yet lure us away from the visible 
 and known by their very marvelousness, enveloping 
 all His manifold works with most effulgent drapery, 
 and, withal, evincing such humility as cannot but 
 possess a mind filled with grand conceptions of the 
 Infinite, it certainly bespeaks a serious, thought- 
 ful reading. But, to the poem itself: 
 
SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 191 
 
 GOD ! 
 
 Thou eternal One : whose presence bright 
 All space doth occupy, all motion guide ; 
 Unchanged through time's all-devastating flight ; 
 Thou only God ! There is no God beside ! 
 Being above all beings! Mighty One! 
 Whom none can comprehend and none explore ; 
 Who filVst existence icith Thyself alone ; 
 Embracing all-supporting — ruling o'er — 
 Being whom we call God — and know no more ! 
 
 In its sublime research, philosophy 
 May measure out the ocean-deep — may count 
 The sands, or the suns rays ; but God ! for Thee 
 Tliere is no weight nor measure : none can mount 
 Up to Thy mysteries. Reason's brightest spark, 
 Though kindled by Thy light, in vain would try 
 To trace Thy counsels, infinite and dark : 
 And thought is lost ere thought can soar so high, 
 Even like past moments in eternity. 
 
 Thou from primeval nothingness didst call 
 
 First chaos, then existence ; Lord ! on Thee 
 
 Eternity had its foundation ; all 
 
 Sprung forth from Thee — of light, joy, harmony, 
 
 Sole origin : all life, all beauty Thine ! 
 
 Thy word created all, and doth create ; 
 
 Thy splendor fills all space icith rays divine. 
 
 Thou art, and wert, and shalt be ! Glorious! Great! 
 
 Light-giving, Life-sustaining Potentate! 
 
192 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 Thy chains the unmeasured universe surround, 
 
 Upheld by Thee, by Thee inspired with breath! 
 
 Thou the beginning with the end hast bound, 
 
 And beautifully mingled life and death! 
 
 As sparks mount upward from the fiery blaze, 
 
 So suns are born, so worlds spring forth from Thee! 
 
 And as the spangles in the sunny rays 
 
 Shine round the silver shore, the pageantry 
 
 Of heaven's bright army glitters in Thy praise ! 
 
 A million torches lighted by Thy hand 
 Wander unwearied through the blue abyss : 
 They own Thy power, accomplish Thy command, 
 All gay with life, all eloquent with bliss. 
 What shall we call them? Piles of crystal light — 
 A glorious company of golden streams — 
 Lamps of celestial ether burning bright — 
 Suns lighting systems with their joyous beams? 
 But Thou to these art as the noon to night ! 
 
 Yes! as a drop of water in the sea, 
 All this magnificence in Thee is lost : 
 What are ten thousand worlds compared to Thee ? 
 And what am I then? Heaverts unnumbered host, 
 Though multiplied by myriads, and arrayed 
 In all the glory of sublimest thought, 
 Is but an atom in the balance, weighed 
 Against Thy greatness — is a cipher brought 
 Against infinity ! 0, what am I then ? Naught ! 
 
 Naught! Yet the effluence of Thy light divine, 
 Pervading icorlds, hath reached my bosom too; 
 
SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 193 
 
 Yes! in my spirit doth Thy spirit shine. 
 
 As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew! 
 
 Na ugh t ! Yet I live, a n d on h ope's p in ion s fly 
 
 Eager towards Thy presence ; for in Thee 
 
 Hive, and breathe, and dwell; aspiring high. 
 
 Even to the throne of Thy divinity ! 
 
 I am, God! and surely Thou must be! 
 
 Thou art! directing, guiding all. Thou art ! 
 Direct my understanding, then, to Thee; 
 Control my spirit, guide my wandering heart : 
 
 Though but an atom 'midst immensity. 
 
 Still I am something, fashioned by Thy hand ! 
 
 I hold a middle rank Hwixt heaven and earth. 
 
 On the last verge of mortal being stand, 
 
 Close to the realms where angels have their birth. 
 
 Just on the boundaries of the spirit-land! 
 
 The chain of being is complete in me; 
 In me is matter s last gradation lost, 
 And the next step is spirit — Deity ! 
 I can command the lightning, and am dust! 
 A monarch, and a slave ; a worm, a god! 
 Whence came I here? and how so marvellously 
 Constructed and conceived? — unknown! this clod 
 Lives surely through some higher energy ; 
 For from itself alone it could not be ! 
 
 Creator, yes! Thy wisdom and Thy ward 
 
 Created me! Thou source of life and good! 
 
 Thou spirit of my spirit, and my Lord! 
 
 Thy light. Thy love, in their bright plenitude 
 9 
 
194 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 Filled me with an immortal soul, to spring 
 Oder the abyss of death, and bade it wear 
 The garments of eternal day, and wing 
 Its heavenly flight beyond this little sphere, 
 Even to its source — to Thee — its Author there ! 
 
 thoughts ineffable ! visions blest ! 
 Though worthless our conceptions all of Thee, 
 Yet shall Thy shadowed image fill our breast, 
 And waft its homage to Thy Deity ! 
 God! thus alone my lonely thoughts can soar : 
 Thm seek Thy presence, Being wise and good! 
 ■Midst Thy vast icorJcs admire, obey, adore ; 
 And when the tongue is eloquent no more, 
 The soul shall speak in tears of gratitude. 
 
 It is a fine thought of Bishop Hopkins touching 
 the Deity, that " it tires the conceptions of angels 
 to apprehend His majesty." Much more, then, is 
 man confounded, on attempting it, as in the instance 
 of the philosopher Simonides, whom the king asked, 
 " What is God? " Desiring a day's time in which 
 to prepare a sufficient answer, and finding himself, 
 at sunset, too perplexed to report to the king the 
 result of his deliberation, he asked another day. 
 But another sunset found him as far off as ever from 
 an adequate definition of the Being of beings. 
 Asking another day and still another, the king at 
 length chided him for his long delay. Too pro- 
 found for the philosopher, to the king's query, 
 
SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 195 
 
 "What is God?" he could only respond at last that 
 "the more he thought upon it, the more still he 
 might. For the further he waded himself in the 
 search thereof, the further he was from the finding 
 of it." It is said, too, of Plato — " the Divine," as, 
 for his wisdom, the ancients styled him — that, on 
 being asked the same question, he answered, 
 "What God is, that I know not; what He is not, 
 that I know." Heathen, as they were, and, hence, 
 less informed of His perfections than we to whom, 
 in His gospel, He has given a more glorious revela- 
 tion of Himself, yet it would be attributing to neither 
 philosopher a feeling too nearly like our own, if we 
 supposed him, on pausing a moment in his inquiry 
 into the phenomena of His Being, as passionately 
 exclaiming with our modern Christian poet, Breit- 
 haupt. 
 
 " While Thee, all infinite, I set 
 
 By faith before my ravished eye, 
 My weakness bends beneath the weight ; 
 O'erpowered I sink, I faint, I die !" 
 
 We might as well attempt to carry the ocean in 
 the hollow of our hand as to essay to comprehend 
 an unrestricted, or fuller revelation of the Supreme 
 Being, than we now enjoy. He "hideth Himself" 
 — "clouds and darkness are round about Him," not 
 that He would excite in us doubts of His existence, 
 or vex our efforts to unravel the profound myster- 
 ies of His Being, or encourage us to spend our 
 
196 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 loves only on the visible which, in truth, is less real, 
 in that it is transitory, than the invisible which 
 lasts forever, but He u hideth Himself" lest an in- 
 finite display of His glory should indeed consume 
 us. It is mercy, not cruelty — it is infinite mercy 
 and wisdom that prevent God from revealing Him- 
 self to us without a veil. 
 
 The shadows that invest 
 His throne are tempered, lest its blaze should blind, 
 Aye, wilt me into nothingness. A single 
 Glimpse of Him unveiled, and angels e'en would 
 Cease to be. Content am I to see 
 Unflinchingly the glistening orbs that 
 Nightly ornament His footstool, earth, the 
 Fringe of glory that He pencils on the 
 Vesture of th* retiring storm, and th' image 
 Of His Power, tho' dimn'd by mist, as mirror' cl 
 In the vasty deep. 
 
 I dare not peer too 
 Far into the glory-burthened clouds 
 About The Infinite, lest like the foolish 
 Moth I perish for my pains in seeking 
 Light. 
 
 We need not ask pardon of the reader for thus 
 bending his thought more directly and fervently 
 towards the Mighty One than on previous pages. 
 If he has entertained exalted views of Him, it is 
 but appropriate to our purpose to stir up or 
 strengthen such an appreciation of His claims upon 
 his recognition and reverence, while, if he has not 
 cultivated such subdued, reverential feelings to- 
 
SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 197 
 
 wards the Almighty as would prevent him from 
 indulging any profanations of His sanctities, it but 
 strictly accords with our design, thus to excite in 
 him deep thought of his irreligion, indeed, of his 
 positive wickedness, or criminality. God is an ob- 
 ject which no one endowed with mind can exclude 
 from his reflections without imperiling his highest 
 interests. We must think of Him, and the senti- 
 ment of reverence thus occasioned should not be 
 allowed to remain inoperative : it must eventuate 
 in honest, sincere obedience to His will and Word, 
 else the ultimate issue can only be eternal banish- 
 ment from His Presence into " outer darkness." 
 Though it be impossible ever to acquire an adequate 
 understanding of His nature and perfections, yet 
 all who can think are by this very fact bound to 
 compass as much of the revelation of Himself as He 
 hath made it possible for them to apprehend. Oh 
 that we could stay the ambitions of men for vani- 
 ties of all sorts, just long enough to turn them to 
 the only two objects in all the universe which are 
 really worthy of their deepest thought — God and 
 their own human soul ! 
 
 To our own mind it is, indeed, a vast, unfathom- 
 able deep — this subject of infinite magnitude, God ! 
 Now and then w T e walk along the shore so fascinat- 
 ed by glimpses of wonderful things which it dimly 
 outlines to our view, so held by the ceaseless, solemn 
 murmurings which roll in upon the soul from the 
 
198 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 not very far-off but, as yet to us, untraversed, un- 
 realized department of life whither every heart- 
 throb is nearing us, and ingress to which will at last 
 be so easy, that unconscious of the swelling tide of 
 mystery, we find ourself, at length, utterly over- 
 whelmed. Contemplating His sublime excellencies, 
 and the myriad manifestations of His infinite Self, 
 in the natural world, which it is hardly credible 
 that any sane man could ignore — manifestations 
 wanting nowhere, but which start up before him in 
 every nook and cranny of creation whither man's 
 curiosity or love of truth or of novelty carries him, 
 it is with deep-felt resentment that we protest 
 against their utter irrationality and irreverence who 
 deny His very existence. 
 
 The most profane of the profane is the wilful 
 atheist. For he not only robs God of the glory 
 due to Him as such, but He blasphemously de- 
 nies Him the very right to be! If the word 
 " profane"* means what scholars tell us, there is 
 at once none to whom it may be more appropri- 
 ately applied and who is at a greater distance 
 from every possibility of salvation, if he continues 
 in his blasphemous belief, than your stubborn 
 atheist. Jeremy Taylor exposes the absurdity of 
 
 * It is of Latin origin. Bishop Hopkins says, that it 
 * ' hath its notion or etymology, quasi porro, ovprocul afano ; 
 which signifies far from the temple," or "separated from 
 religion. ' ' 
 
SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 199 
 
 all that the most logical of the profane fraternity 
 have advanced as constituting their " argument." 
 "The thing formed, says that nothing formed it; 
 and that which is made, £«-, while that which made 
 it is not! This folly is infinite." Nor is it a very 
 complimentary or flattering figure of rhetoric under 
 which Coleridge depicts atheistic incredulity — 
 
 ' ' The owlet Atheism 
 Sailing on obscene wings across the moon, 
 Drops his blue-fringed lids and shuts them close, 
 And, hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, 
 Cries out, 'Where is it ?' " 
 
 It astonishes us — it is, indeed, extreme profanity, 
 that any one, who is not a born idiot, should deny 
 personality, or existence, to "the Mighty God," 
 though infinitely sufficient evidences of the sublime 
 truth abound in every department of knowledge. 
 The stars need not prove their entity ; they nightly 
 flash down their light upon our sight to challenge, 
 not our faith in their being, but our admiration of 
 their brilliance. The towering mountain need not 
 hoarsely belch forth some formal reason for its ap- 
 pearance in nature ; the appreciative observer is 
 content to let it wear its grandeur, and awe him into 
 a thoughtful attitude, without protest. The flowing 
 sea need not explain and apologize for the swell 
 that lifts still higher the proud, curling pennants of 
 the man-of-war; the crew feels it without a doubt 
 of its reality. Every seen thing is admitted, even 
 
200 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 by those who seem to be most honest in their avowed 
 conviction that there is no God, to be in its proper 
 place, and to be observing its proper offices. No- 
 thing whatever in all the world of organized matter 
 needs any plea for being just what it is, and where 
 it is, in the complicated structure ; and the grand 
 whole constitutes such a unity of creation as must 
 have been pre-conceived and wrought out by one 
 mind, and, too, of infinite powers. Yet, strange as 
 it is, to many persons, the Creator of all this, for 
 claiming that He is "God over all," is not merely 
 an object of suspicion, but no object at all, either of 
 faith or of doubt, of reverence or of irreverence. 
 And, mostly, because He is not seen, or is not as 
 directly visible, as His creatures — a reason for 
 which, to be self-consistent, they should, as well 
 deny the existence of what, for want of a better 
 word to express it, we call " life," since, like a thou- 
 sand other things in this phenomenal world, it is not, 
 and cannot be seen. Whatever visible things evolve 
 themselves from the impalpable " principle," as 
 some thinkers have called it, and of which visible 
 things none is more full of mysteries than the 
 human organization, are but its effects, or results, 
 and not " life " itself. 
 
 It would be folly, perhaps, on our part, to 
 attempt an original argument, or merely new hints 
 or suggestions, as addenda to the profound volumes 
 on the Divine Existence which the deepest thinkers 
 
SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 201 
 
 of nearly every age in the history of man have left 
 us as a precious heritage of their faith in, and devo- 
 tion to Him. Nevertheless as it is our firm convic- 
 tion, that the super-abounding and still increasing 
 profanities of the times are due to the atheistic and 
 infidel sentiment which has been, within recent 
 years, and still is, cultivated by large numbers of the 
 people, the reader will allow us to tax his patience 
 a little further, in our protest against such dangerous 
 unbelief. It certainly behooves every believer in 
 God, in this age of atheistic activity, to assert his 
 convictions, though in doing this he may state 
 nothing new. 
 
 Some of the learned philosophers of the age are 
 loth to concede, while it is brazenly denied by 
 others — leaders in the world of scientific investiga- 
 tion — that there is such an "Eternal One" as is so 
 profoundly adored by the author of the grand Rus- 
 sian poem. Or, if He exists at all, as it were by 
 their sufferance, in their inquiries into the arcana 
 of the material creation — His own handiwork — they 
 seem anxious to determine, not how intimately 
 related to it He is — an effort which would find its 
 reward in the extinguishment of all doubt of His 
 existence — but how remote is His agency, if He 
 ever had any at all, in its origination and perpetua- 
 tion. Discovering, now and then, the relations, or 
 direct causes, of a few things which have hitherto 
 baffled the investigations of philosophers, or were 
 
202 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 unknowable, more because their own perceptive 
 powers w r ere not sufficiently developed to distinguish 
 them, than that the Creator had put them under the 
 ban of secrecy, they clap their hands over what they 
 complacently term "the successes of science;" and 
 boldly and proudly asserting its superiority to reve- 
 lation which, in not one of its scriptures, assumes to 
 be a teacher of mere science, they seem delighted 
 that they can crowd the Creator, as it were, so far 
 away from our understanding, that to retain Him at 
 all in our belief amounts to the merest superstition. 
 Stumbling, now and then, upon really extraordinary 
 things in the secret, unwritten, ponderous history 
 of cause and effect — a history which there is no 
 other than the infinite mind of the great God Him- 
 self that could either dictate, or, if written in full, 
 could compass — it is expected by these sceptical 
 scholars, that we shall accept their explanations of 
 the phenomena as being sufficiently conclusive to 
 disabuse our minds of the notion, that God had any- 
 thing to do with them. Their science more than 
 offsets our inherent faith in Him. Their doubt of 
 His Being is more reasonable than our devotion to 
 Him. Their deductions and inductions are infallible, 
 and, therefore, incontrovertible. The attitude that 
 we are expected to assume before each successive 
 revelation which they blazon before the world of the 
 hitherto unperceived causes of things, is that of 
 being dumb-founded, while, if we dare, as believers 
 
SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 203 
 
 in God, to modify their dictum by suggesting that 
 it is more than possible that He had something to 
 do with them, we are condemned as having com- 
 mitted an outrage upon the sacred person of science. 
 
 It is not to science itself that we oppose objec- 
 tions. We rejoice in its disclosures of secret things 
 in nature, for the farther we penetrate her labyrinths 
 the deeper becomes our conception of His wisdom 
 and power, and the more appreciable becomes the 
 relation that we, as His creatures, sustain to the 
 mighty God. We welcome every demonstration of 
 facts which physical science offers us ; but we pro- 
 test against the assumption that the prosecution of 
 its inquiries logically ends in atheism. 
 
 Two very unscientific things have always pre- 
 vented, and always will prevent us, from accepting 
 the dictum of some of the world's most scholarly 
 yet godless scientists touching the Divine Exist- 
 ence. The first is, the fathering of the "enmity" 
 of their own "carnal mind against God" on the re- 
 velations of science. The second is, their ultima- 
 tum that there is no God, though as yet it has not 
 been demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt. 
 Certainty has ever been the boast of science. It 
 permits no doubt of that which it assumes to prove. 
 On the ground of the accuracy of its principles and 
 methods, it claims implicit belief in its teachings. 
 And yet the learned atheism which identifies itself 
 so closely with much of the science of the present 
 
204 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 day as scarcely to be distinguishable from it, presses 
 upon our belief the proposition that there is no 
 God, which it has not yet proved to the satisfaction 
 even of many men of equal mind and knowledge, let 
 alone the very much larger class of much less 
 learned persons but of more faith in revelation. In- 
 volving as it does issues of infinite moment, science, 
 expecting us to believe its dictum with any demon- 
 stration before us less than such as amounts to 
 mathematical certainty, is surely guilty of greater 
 follv than is the faith of man in the Word of God. 
 It needs no proof that man can never be utterly 
 silenced respecting the old, old truth, that God is ! 
 We may be ridiculed for our creed. Through lack 
 of mental discipline, and ignorance of strictly logical 
 methods, we may be worsted in argument. We 
 may be brought to confusion by the great learning 
 which some champion of atheism may precipitate 
 upon us to overwhelm and humiliate us. Yet our 
 natural conviction that God is still challenges all 
 means used to put upon it an eternal quietus. 
 After all, this inherent instinct will re-assert itself 
 — it will manifest itself in one w r ay or another. 
 Some may call this mere prejudice on our part ; 
 others may bluntly term it obstinacy ; but we term 
 it an ineradicable instinct of our divinely-organized 
 being. It is a spark of light in our human nature 
 which never has been, and never can be extin- 
 guished; it only needs, here and there in the dark 
 
SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 205 
 
 places of the earth, the gentle breath of the Spirit 
 of revelation to kindle it into a very flame of pure 
 devotion. If men are accountable, not only for 
 their belief in itself, whatever it may be, but for the 
 actual results of that belief, and as it affects other 
 lives as well as their own ; and if, furthermore, 
 there shall be included in their final account not 
 only the results, or effects, of their belief upon the 
 minds and in the lives of the generation of which 
 they are units, but as well, all the results that shall 
 accumulate in the generations of all coming time, 
 how terrible will be found the score tallied in eter- 
 nity against those philosophers of the age who, wiser 
 than revelation can make them, are teaching the 
 world that God is not, or, if there be a God, He is 
 not the Great First Cause of any thing ! 
 
 Others there are who, though they admit the 
 solemn truth of the Divine Existence into their 
 creed, yet deny that He has given us any revelation 
 of His mysterious Self other than nature affords. 
 To them the Scriptures are but " cunningly-devised 
 fables." They will allow us no communication with 
 Him, except as we grope after Him through His 
 works. They would keep us apart — God and our- 
 selves — as if too intimate acquaintance would sub- 
 serve neither His glory nor our good. Some of the 
 brightest intellects of the day find actual pleasure, 
 in this meridional epoch of the history of knowledge 
 and of religion, in prostituting their powers of 
 
206 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 eloquence to the destructive end of weakening the 
 world's sense of the sanctities of His Being. They 
 belittle His Word. They deny the obligation of 
 His Sabbath. They recommend the re-modeling of 
 His churches into theatres. They make light of the 
 profession of His people. And His ministers are 
 but targets towards which they level arrows, that, if 
 not poisoned, and, hence, intended to kill, are, at 
 least, supposed to be too finely sharpened not to 
 wound them. They seem learned — some of them 
 — which fiction carries with it an influence upon 
 many minds as positive and effectual as that of the 
 fact itself of real learning. They beguile their 
 auditors with the fascinations of wit, vainly imagin- 
 ing that with a laugh, like a lance, they can pierce 
 the most cherished truths to which the Christian 
 world has clung for centuries, and leave them life- 
 less as a corpse. It is no help at all to the cause of 
 Divine truth to deny the fact that there is a cold 
 tidal wave of infidelity now flowing over the land 
 under which the religious sensibilities of many are 
 being chilled to death, the fervent attachment of 
 others to the Scriptures is being cooled, and the 
 development of the gospel throughout the land is 
 being greatly hindered. Not for many past decades 
 have there confronted us such dangerous forms of 
 infidelity as are to-day challenging the resistance, 
 both of the thoughtful yet inconsistent statesman, 
 who, though not humble enough personally to pro- 
 
SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 207 
 
 fess it, yet holds that religion is absolutely neces- 
 sary to the very existence of government, and of the 
 Christian whose avowed relation to Him imposes 
 upon him the obligation of vindicating God's name 
 and authority over man. The masses are being 
 permeated with a species of leaven which cannot 
 but work corruption throughout the whole body 
 politic — the leaven of rationalism, so aggressive in 
 its operations that it is actually endangering the 
 existence of what is at once our glory, and the 
 pledge of our perpetuity as a nation — our religious 
 institutions. The very foundations of society are 
 being unsettled by the eloquent essays of men to 
 whom, if they honestly believe that there is no 
 God, it ought to appear as no small proof of His 
 Being, that He has given them the power to think, 
 and the power to express their thought. 
 
 Though we have no fear of the ultimate issues of 
 this campaign against the truth of God prosecuted 
 by men who are indebted to it for the very blessings 
 which make their present life desirable, yet there 
 are certain present results which no sincere admirer 
 of our common Christian faith, whether or not he is 
 an avowed believer, will blindly ignore. If we 
 properly weigh the relations that obtain between a 
 general, honest belief in the God, no less of the 
 Bible than of nature, and the order, morality and 
 happiness of society; or, if we calmly consider 
 that involved in such a belief, or identified with it, 
 
208 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 are all the best interests of our present life — physi- 
 cal, moral, intellectual, spiritual, personal, social and 
 political interests — it cannot but give us pain to 
 observe that such large masses of the people are in 
 sympathy with these would-be destroyers of relig- 
 ion. Urging their way towards and crowding the 
 halls, where they are told that there is no reason to 
 believe that there is a God, and yet are inconsist- 
 ently taught the while to magnify reason itself as 
 their god, it is with boisterous glee that they ap- 
 plaud the grossest blasphemies that roll oif the 
 smooth tongues of the witty orators. Not merely 
 suppressed murmurs of approbation, but clapping of 
 hands and stamping of feet and impious responses* 
 from the more shameless of the interested throngs, 
 greet the bon-mots flung down upon them by the 
 hero of the hour — bon-mots on our orthodox faith 
 which he expects them to accept as evincing his 
 wonderful intellectual superiority to any Christian 
 mind that entertains such a faith — indeed, to the 
 aggregate brains of all Christendom. Observing 
 such merry demonstrations of infidel sentiment in 
 the public halls of our land, a stranger from another 
 planet, supposed to be inhabited by an intelligent, 
 
 * At one of Col. Robert Ingersoll's Sunday evening 
 lectures recently, in New York city, there came down to 
 the ears of the profane orator from one of the galleries 
 this shocking endorsement of his atheism, "Down with 
 Jehovah !" 
 
SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 209 
 
 unfallen, and, hence, superior race of beings, might 
 well be astonished at the feeling that actuated these 
 fascinated crowds — the feeling of joy and gladness 
 that the idea of God was being dethroned from 
 human thought. On being informed of man's fallen, 
 depraved condition, and of his utter lack of natural 
 resources by which he might regain the glory he 
 lost in his fall from the Divine favor, doubtless his 
 astonishment would give way to the deepest pity 
 that he should reject Divine interposition to that 
 end, while his astonishment and pity could but 
 merge in the feeling of shame on beholding that 
 any of His creatures on whom He had bestowed the 
 superlative gift of reason should actually hold a 
 jubilee over a supposed successful attempt to 
 exclude God from having anything at all to do with 
 or for them ! 
 
 All this is as lamentable as it is shameful. 
 Though the victories of this warfare against the 
 truth are not yet so startling as to amaze the whole 
 Christian world, and, as we believe, are but tempor- 
 ary, yet to true Christian zeal, contemplating the 
 conversion of our whole race to the gospel, they are 
 not of small importance. Of the fascinated crowds 
 so ready to applaud these emissaries of dangerous 
 error, very many who, in an unobtrusive way, have 
 been cultivating infidel sentiment, are now more 
 demonstrative in their opposition to religion. Many 
 others who have been quietly doubting that the 
 
210 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 Bible is true, and have not felt certain perhaps that 
 there is a God, imagining themselves convinced of 
 the correctness of their doubts, are now more posi- 
 tive and decisive in their unbelief. Many of the 
 lower, less intelligent classes — such as have never 
 had any fear of God or of man — are actually being 
 fitted for further and grosser violations of both 
 divine and human law by the weakening of those 
 moral restraints which the truths of God's existence 
 and of the authority of His Word always exert upon 
 the life of man when properly presented and 
 enforced. It was a witty but caustic comment, and 
 not less true than witty or caustic, which a leading 
 metropolitan journal,* not an avowed religious sheet, 
 yet much more outspoken, fearless, and pungent, as 
 a rule, in its denunciations of the immoralities of the 
 day, than many of our professedly religious papers, 
 made, not long since, on the eloquence of the most 
 brazen champion of infidelity in modern times: — 
 44 Colonel Ingersoll delighted an immense audience 
 last night, and can be sure of many more, for every 
 lad character in New York wants to believe that 
 Christianity is a fraud." 
 
 Does not this sufficiently account for the infidelity 
 of men ? It is not the legitimate issue of reason 
 and knowledge, but " the wish is father" and a de- 
 praved heart mother "to the thought/' that there 
 
 * The Neio York Daily Herald, April 25, 1881. 
 
SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 211 
 
 is no God, or that "Christianity is a fraud" — a 
 view of its origin, or cause, which is sustained by 
 the very letter of Scripture. St. Paul attributes 
 the abominations of the Gentiles to the fact that 
 " they did not like to retain God in their knowl- 
 edge " — * a dislike which excused neither their 
 gross idolatries nor any other crimes to which they 
 gave themselves. Ineradicable, as it is, yet very 
 many do not like their own natural convictions of the 
 Divine Existence. They consent to the truth, not 
 willingly, but reluctantly. They would like to dis- 
 prove it, but there is a natural, insuperable difficulty 
 in their way — intellectual inability. The truth 
 that there is an All-seeing eye following their every 
 step, an All-hearing ear listening ever to their soft- 
 est w T hispers, a Presence from whose continued 
 observation there is absolutely no escape, is a dark 
 shadow; it hangs over all their paths; it casts a 
 gloom upon all their questionable pleasures ; it 
 crosses all their carnal inclinations ; it makes them 
 cowards often at night, since it adds somewhat to 
 the terrors of natural darkness, while it is a most 
 humiliating and pitiful exhibition of their boasted 
 independence of Christian fears, or pusillanimity, to 
 hear them blaspheme God's holy name often in 
 broad daylight. This is their "skeleton in the 
 closet" — the thought that there is a God who will 
 
 *Kom. ii. 18-32. 
 
212 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 eventually confront them, and demand of them an 
 account of themselves — a skeleton, however, which 
 will not keep itself in concealment. Though blood- 
 less and fleshless, yet it seems to have all the power 
 of life. Laughing at all efforts to bar and bolt it 
 within the closet of the mind, it sits down with them 
 at their riotous feasts ; it mingles with them in their 
 orgies ; it follows them into places of bad repute ; 
 it almost clutches their fingers while engaged in 
 some guilty work ; it starts up frightfully, now and 
 then, before them, when conceiving some wicked 
 project, and in the progress of its prosecution it will 
 not keep out of their way ; it follows them, and, 
 endowed, as it w x ere, with a voice which none but 
 themselves can hear, ever and anon it w r hispers in 
 their ears this first of all truths, There is a God ! 
 This is the torment of their life ; and, like Hamlet's 
 ghost, it will "not down" — it will not be " ob- 
 scurely sepulchered." It is a truth that, like the 
 sword of Damocles, hangs over them threateningly. 
 The uneasiness thus created in many minds by 
 the truth that there is a God to whom they are ac- 
 countable for all their acts, is not imaginary but 
 real. It illustrates itself in a thousand ways, of 
 w T hich there is none so malignant, so utterly profane, 
 as their desire to extinguish, if not God Himself, 
 yet, at least, their own belief in Him. We are 
 persuaded that if some extraordinary genius should 
 rise up and, aided and abetted by the prince of 
 
SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 213 
 
 darkness, present to the world such an argument 
 against the long-cherished, and down toihe present 
 day still unshaken truth that God is as no master- 
 polemic in all Christendom could refute — an argu- 
 ment as plain to the common mind as that white is 
 white, or black, black — there are tens of thousands 
 of men who would set the very bells a-ringing for 
 gladness. Whatever explanation of the causes of 
 unbelief have been offered by men who have deeply 
 revolved this subject, there is, after all, no truer 
 one than that most atheists are such because they 
 want to believe that there is no God, and a very 
 large proportion of infidels are such because they 
 " want to believe that Christianity is a fraud." 
 
 With this exhibit, then, before him, of the pre- 
 vailing atheism and infidelity of the age, the reader 
 need not be surprised at its abounding iniquities. 
 No wonder that God's name is more generally and 
 grossly profaned, that His Sabbath is less scrupu- 
 lously observed, that the preaching of His Word is 
 attended with less success in the conversion of men, 
 or that fewer additions are made to the membership 
 of His church than has been observed for many past 
 years. No wonder that, compiled by careful, com- 
 petent hands, the statistics of crime have become so 
 appalling even to the secular press, * which is wisely 
 
 * As supporting the views here expressed, touching the 
 cause of the increased number and magnitude of the 
 crimes of the current times, Tve herewith append the de- 
 
214 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 calling public attention to the demoralization of 
 society. It is a fact that needs no proof other than 
 the history of man, that in the ratio of the preva- 
 lence of such atheistic and deistic sentiment as is 
 above described crime increases. It is as true in 
 the moral world that a bad life issues from a false 
 faith as in the natural world that a foul stream flows 
 from a corrupt fountain. It is as absurd to expect 
 virtue or morality to bud, blossom, and bear fruit in 
 one who is not u rooted and grounded" in the faith 
 of God's existence, as to expect " grapes of thorns, 
 
 liverance, which has just fallen into our hands, of the New 
 York Evening Post : — " We believe it to be susceptible of 
 demonstration that the late extraordinary and deplorable 
 increase of crime — an increase more palpable every day, 
 crowding with its record the columns of the public prints, 
 and sickening the soul with its endless detail and novelty 
 of horror — is largely due to the growth of materialism, or 
 what is termed infidelity ; and that mainly in the reaction 
 from the sceptical drift of the times lies the path of whole- 
 some reform. A careful survey of the murders, suicides, 
 and other great felonies committed in the chief cities of 
 the United States during the last ten years, shows that a 
 heavy fraction of the perpetrators were atheists and free- 
 thinkers. These unhappy persons, persuaded that life is 
 the be-all and end all here, imagine that they can jump 
 the life to come . A collection of letters and other papers 
 often left by criminals, when anticipating death, shows a 
 fearful number of instances, some of which many readers 
 will recall, of absolute disbelief in the existence of a God, 
 or in penalties for sins committed in this life to be exacted 
 in a future one." 
 
SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 215 
 
 or figs of thistles." Some thought like this must 
 have deeply impressed even the notorious Robes- 
 pierre. It was a critical period of French history 
 when the no-God party was about to gain the 
 ascendency. The whole nation was reeling under 
 the dominance of passions which, defying the 
 restraints of morality and law, were precipitating it 
 into anarchy and utter ruin. Crimes were being 
 committed which blanched the cheeks and palsied 
 the feeble opposition of such witnesses as in whom 
 there yet smouldered some embers of the universal 
 faith that God is. There was none who could stay 
 the tide of evil and terror flowing over sunny France 
 — a tide as resistless as the waves that laughed at 
 Canute's imperial decree. Then it was that Robes- 
 pierre stood up and, at the peril of his life, ex- 
 claimed with trembling voice, "The legislator who 
 would adopt the system of Atheism is insane. The 
 national convention abhors such a system. Atheism 
 is aristocratic. The idea of a Great Being w T ho 
 watches over oppressed innocence, and who punishes 
 triumphant guilt, is quite popular. If God did not 
 exist it ivould behoove men to invent Him /" 
 
 But we have not the space further to pursue this 
 line of thought. We have written enough to sug- 
 gest to any mind desirous of knowing the truth, the 
 duties which the great d:ctrine of the Divine Exist- 
 ence implies. It is due, as well to one's own well- 
 being as to the divine glory, that he should never 
 
216 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 let his inherent idea of God lose its vividness, or its 
 distinctness. As the world of living men, moving 
 hither and thither over the great deep, would be de 
 stroyed were the polar star plucked from the sky 
 and plunged into the sea, so let this star, gleaming 
 down upon us through the darkness of nature, be 
 extinguished, if possible, and the w T hole race of man 
 is lost in time and in eternity. As upon human 
 works of art may often be seen the maker's name, 
 inscribed in a place where, true, it is not the first 
 thing observed, yet still where, on searching for it, 
 it may be seen; so upon the human soul is inscribed, 
 nor is very long and anxious examination necessary 
 to find, the name of the Artist, God. Who w T ould 
 erase it ? Who believes that, as a creature, he is 
 merely the ultimate result of a fortuitous concur- 
 rence of insensate atoms, and not the product of 
 divine infinite skill and wisdom ? Who professes 
 such atheism confesses, too, that he is a fool. 
 
 There are times when men who, though they 
 would be offended at the charge of atheism, yet find 
 it difficult to keep uppermost in their thoughts the 
 great truth of the Divine Existence. Deeply en- 
 grossed w T ith material things, devoting their powers, 
 almost uninterruptedly, to merely earthly aims, the 
 idea of God loses its influence on them so far that, 
 brought to reflection by seme providence crossing 
 their path or ending temporarily their secular activi- 
 ties, they are ready to blame themselves as in effect, 
 
SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 217 
 
 having had no belief in Him at all. They mourn 
 perhaps over this practical atheism of which they 
 confess themselves guilty. But even while they 
 lament it, the pressing, driving duties and engage- 
 ments of secular life, coming one after another with 
 resistless momentum, crowd out of them again and 
 again this profitable sorrow, so that no means are 
 adopted and rigidly pursued to cultivate their relig- 
 ious nature. If it seems, thus, to be growing less 
 and less in importance, or if the thought of God is 
 gradually losing its power over your outer life in 
 proportion as the things of this life take hold of the 
 •soul within, then fling aside the implements of your 
 handicraft, leave your gains in bank or in the safe, 
 turn your back. upon the whirl and twirl of purely 
 material activities, and go walk silently and reflect- 
 ively the paths of nature, that at every step you 
 take in any direction the great eternal truth may 
 be read anew, and may be re-impressed deeper than 
 ever upon the soul. And take the Scriptures with 
 you — "the mirror of the Divinity," said the poet 
 Gilfillan; "the most sublime philosophy," said Sir 
 Isaac Newton; "a letter from the 'Father of mer- 
 cies' to His children at school," said Bowes; — take 
 the Scripture with you and read it upon every page. 
 Every page glows with the radiance of His name. 
 The imprimatur of each book is "Thus saith the 
 Lord." He who, in the love of truth, reads the 
 Bible with the view of settling the question whether 
 10 
 
218 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 or not he shall believe in God, will never find him- 
 self presumptuous enough to ask, like insolent 
 Pharaoh, "Who is the Lord that I should obey His 
 voice?" 
 
 And when you have occasion to do it, speak His 
 name solemnly, impressively. It is not a trifle of 
 language. There is infinite significance in it — "a 
 far greater fulness of meaning," says an eloquent 
 writer, "than in all the names put together of all 
 the creatures and things in heaven and earth." 
 Josephus records* a signal illustration of the fact 
 that, as written by the ancient Jews, there seems to 
 have attached to it some mysterious talismanic 
 power. Alexander the Great, on his approach to 
 the Holy City, with an army of blood thirsty Phoe- 
 nicians and Chaldeans, intent on the death of the 
 high-priest and on a harvest of plunder, was himself 
 vanquished by a glimpse of the Name. Meeting 
 "the high-priest in purple and scarlet clothing, with 
 his. mitre on his head, having the golden plate 
 whereon the name of God was engraved, he ap- 
 proached by himself, and adored that name, and 
 first saluted the high-priest." Gathering about the 
 conquered conqueror the Jews enthusiastically 
 saluted him, at which extraordinary demonstration 
 his disappointed army became so surprised that they 
 concluded that he had suddenly become demented 
 
 * Antiquities of the Jews. Vol. i. Book xi. Chap. viii. 
 
SUBLIME APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY. 219 
 
 — they "supposed him disordered in his mind." 
 Differing from the judgment of his maddened army 
 and, in face of repeated subsequent instances in 
 which a profound appreciation of the Being of God 
 has been attributed to a disordered mind, we insist, 
 nevertheless, on 
 
 " Glory and praise to Jehovah on high ! 
 
 Glory from all. through the earth and the sky ! 
 Angels approach Him in homage and duty ; 
 
 Fall at the feet of your Heavenly King : 
 Saints, to His Presence O throng, in the beauty 
 
 Of holy devotion His mercies to sing. 
 Glory and praise to Jehovah on high ! 
 Glory from all, through the earth and sky !* 
 
 * Henry F. Lyte. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 
 
 HHHE divine law forbidding profanity first reached 
 -^- the ear of man amidst awful solemnities. It 
 is the merest sketch of the extraordinary scene 
 which Moses recorded in the Pentateuch.* The 
 poet or painter is not living whose genius is equal 
 to an essay, in verse or on canvass, that shall 
 adequately picture the terrors which invested the 
 towering pulpit whence the Almighty first uttered 
 the law of holiness to stricken, fallen man. From 
 the midst of " thunderings " that shook "the 
 mount" to its very foundations, as if it were in 
 travail at the birth of some preternatural monster ; 
 and of roaring flame, kindled by the play of un- 
 fettered "lightnings;" and of rolling masses of 
 "smoke" and "cloud" which begirt and guarded 
 its crest against the stealthy footsteps of prying 
 curiosity — there was heard "a voice" marvelously 
 distinguishable from the blast of some mysterious 
 "trumpet," which, at the same instant, "sounded 
 long," and, as one and another choir of unseen 
 angels joined in the strain, " waxed louder and 
 louder" — "a voice" so alarming to the immense 
 
 *Ex. xix. 16-25. 
 (220) 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 221 
 
 throng standing " at the nether part of the mount" 
 that instinctively they fell back, " and stood afar 
 off," and begged their leader, Moses, that it should 
 not be repeated — "a voice" the burthen of which 
 was the holy law which was forever to govern man 
 in his relations to his Maker and his neighbor. 
 Israel had never before witnessed such an extra- 
 ordinary demonstration of the Divine Presence. 
 
 And remarkable, indeed, is the fact, which chal- 
 lenges especially their consideration who think 
 swearing a thing of trifling consequence, that " of 
 the eight great crimes which God thought proper to 
 make the express subject of prohibition," in this 
 holy law, the only one which He solemnly declares 
 shall not escape His judgment is set forth as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 « THOU SHALT NOT TAKE 
 
 THE NAME OF 
 
 THE LORD THY GOD 
 
 IN VAIN: 
 
 FOR THE LORD WILL NOT HOLD 
 
 HIM GUILTLESS 
 
 THAT TAKETH HIS NAME 
 
 IN VAIN."* 
 
 Accented with thunder and punctuated with 
 lightning, as was this divine law touching profanity, 
 
 * Ex. xx. 7. 
 
222 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 it is difficult to determine which is • the more re- 
 markable fact, that any one who has read it, and 
 pondered the terrible phenomena which attended its 
 first publication to the world, should ever dare to 
 violate it, or that God does not visit them with 
 instant vengeance who dare to do so. Of this latter 
 fact there is but one explanation — an explanation 
 which comes from the lips of the Mighty One Him- 
 self, and breathes such infinite love and mercy, on 
 His part, as should move, one would' think, the im- 
 penitent swearer to tears, as he reads it — " As I 
 live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the 
 death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from 
 his way and live."* It is the testimony, also, of 
 one of His inspired apostles, that " the Lord is not 
 slack concerning His promises, as some men count 
 slackness ; but is long-suffering to us- ward, not will- 
 ing that any should perish, but that all should come 
 to repentance."! 
 
 Not less authoritative because its deliverance was 
 not accompanied with such phenomena as distin- 
 guished the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, is the 
 gospel commandment touching profanity. As plain 
 as emphatic, and as decisive as direct, is Christ's 
 veto of this gross irreverence. None could feel as 
 exquisitely as He — " the brightness of His glory, 
 and the express image of His person" — J the in- 
 
 *Eze. xxxiii. 11. \2 Pet. iii. 9. {Heb. *• 3 - 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 223 
 
 dignity of a mere indifferent mention, let alone a 
 bold profanation, of the name of God. None can 
 be more jealous of the honor of the universal Father 
 than was His only begotten Son. None can appre- 
 hend the gravity of the offence of belittling the 
 Lord God Almighty than did He whose claims to 
 divine fellowship, which have never been disproved, 
 hardly needed any demonstration other than his own 
 positive testimony, "I and my Father are one."* 
 It is the manner of a king, recognizing no authority 
 greater than his own, to legislate for his lawless 
 subjects, and the tone of a judge who evinces no 
 conscious sense "whatever of a higher court — a 
 "court of appeals" — that could send down a re- 
 versal of his decision, which appear in His utterance 
 of the New Testament law on this subject: — 
 
 " BUT I SAY UNTO YOU, 
 
 SWEAR NOT AT ALL ; 
 
 NEITHER BY HEAVEN ; FOR IT IS GOD'S 
 
 THRONE: 
 
 NOR BY THE EARTH; FOR IT IS HIS 
 
 FOOTSTOOL : 
 NEITHER BY JERUSALEM ; FOR IT IS THE 
 
 CITY OF THE GREAT KING. 
 NEITHER SHxlLT THOU SWEAR BY THY 
 
 *Jn. x. 30. 
 
224 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 HEAD, BECAUSE THOU CANST 
 NOT MAKE ONE HAIR WHITE OR BLACK. 
 
 BUT LET YOUR COMMUNICATION BE, 
 
 YEA, YEA; NAY, NAY: 
 
 FOR WHATSOEVER IS MORE THAN THESE 
 
 COMETH OF EVIL."* 
 
 Denied, as it is, by some learned men, and as- 
 serted by others, that judicial oaths are here for- 
 bidden, we are, therefore, left to our own judgment 
 to determine whether or not Christ actually pro- 
 hibited this sort of swearing. We cannot easily 
 dismiss the conviction that He meant to interdict 
 all swearing, judicial or non-judicial, formal or in- 
 formal. His reference to several old prohibitions! 
 of false oaths — " It hath been said by them of old 
 time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, etc." — loses 
 all its force, if He did not intend His new precept 
 to. forbid swearing truly, as well as falsely. 
 Uttered in the same breath in which He quoted 
 some old-time authority on the sin of perjury, His 
 emphatic, negative command — " Swear not at 
 all" — is, to our own mind, not equivocal. It 
 simply means that we are not to swear even to the 
 truth, and, if we are not to swear, at any time, even 
 
 *Mat. v. 34-37. 
 
 f Lev. xix. 12. Num. xxx. 2. Ec. v. 4, 5. 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 225 
 
 to the truth, much less dare we swear falsely.* 
 Strongly corroborative of this construction is the 
 parallel scripture from the pen of St. James : — 
 
 "BUT ABOVE ALL THINGS, MY 
 
 BRETHREN, 
 
 SWEAR NOT, 
 
 NEITHER BY HEAVEN, NEITHER BY THE 
 
 EARTH, 
 
 NEITHER BY ANY OTHER OATH ; 
 
 BUT LET YOUR YEA BE YEA ; AND YOUR 
 
 NAY, NAY ; 
 LEST YE FALL INTO CONDEMNATION."! 
 
 The sacred writer certainly intended to include 
 in the phraseology, "any other oath," all swearing 
 other than the common or familiar modes, or forms, 
 to which he alludes in the several previous interdict- 
 ory clauses. These words do, or do not, cover 
 "judicial oaths." If they do interdict such oaths, 
 then it is "judicial" profanity which is committed 
 in all the courts of the land, when witnesses are 
 compelled to observe the forms in which they are 
 administered. If they do not include or have any 
 reference at all to such oaths, then the entire clause 
 
 *"Vid. Essays on the Principles of Morality," etc., by 
 Jonathan Dymond, Part ii. Essay ii. Chap. vii. Oaths. 
 t Ja. v. 12. 
 
 10* 
 
226 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 of which they are the most important words hardly 
 appears significant enough for a place in the text of 
 St. James' scripture on swearing. The conviction 
 of " many of the Christian fathers,"* who, according 
 toGrotius, " condemned all oaths without exception," 
 seems to us as but strictly conforming both to the ' 
 letter and spirit of the New Testament. Were we 
 writing a treatise on this special feature of the 
 general subject of sw r earing, other considerations, as 
 well, might be urged in support of our view. But 
 these, for the present, must suffice. 
 
 It is no part of our purpose to re-open, by these 
 remarks, a controversy which has been agitating the 
 theological w T orld now and then for centuries. We 
 have plainly expressed our view on the scriptural 
 authority for legal oaths, simply that the render 
 may be at no loss to know how we regard them. If 
 the question of the profanity of that kind of swear- 
 ing were made to hinge, not on Christ's dictum con- 
 cerning it, but simply on the manner in which, 
 almost — perhaps it would not be very extravagant 
 to say entirely — without exception it is administered 
 in our courts, there are but few who w r ould not 
 agree with us in condemning it as being but little 
 less criminal than the " common" swearing practiced 
 so often by persons who have no respect either for 
 the law or for the gospel. The actual, and in ten 
 
 *Tertullian, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysostom. 
 Vicl. Jonathan Dymond, in loco. 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 227 
 
 thousand instances extreme^ irreverence with which 
 it is presented to witnesses whom all parties to the 
 "suit at law" expect to give their testimony as if 
 they were standing face to face with the all-knowing 
 God, is calculated to beget in them the very feeling 
 which it is absolutely necessary to the ends of jus- 
 tice should, if at all possible, be prevented — the 
 feeling of indifference as to the importance and 
 solemnities of an oath. Yielding for a moment the 
 point that the act of taking this kind of oath is not 
 per se profane, yet who that has often seen the 
 hurried and often really indecent mode in which it 
 is observed, could make himself believe that even to 
 the mind of the court itself, there was any religions 
 feature attaching to it ? Happening in court at the 
 moment of its administration, the first, if not the only 
 impression which it could make on the mind of an 
 intelligent semi-civilized heathen, not yet informed 
 of the end contemplated by such a hasty judicial 
 ceremony, would be that they — the parties to suit 
 — were precipitating something which, though it 
 appeared like a duty, or had some relation or other 
 to judicial business, yet certainly was not of much 
 consequence. All this in face of the fact, that the 
 court holds perjury as being so serious a crime, 
 that if some easy, indifferent, conscienceless witness 
 be convicted of it, he will be sent to a felon's cell 
 for many years. 
 
 Admitting that it is a mooted question whether 
 
228 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 or not such legally-exacted swearing, even though 
 observed in the most impressive manner, is a viola- 
 tion of Christian law — a question, which, probably, 
 will never be absolutely answered, in this life, either 
 affirmatively or negatively, since there have been 
 many volumes written on either side, which have 
 failed to prove, satisfactorily to all consciences, the 
 alleged errors of the other side — we are disposed, 
 therefore, neither to justify nor condemn the reader, 
 if he practically sanctions it. In the absence of 
 such scriptures, touching the matter, as would ad- 
 mit to all minds of but one construction, either ap- 
 proving or prohibiting it, one's own moral sense of 
 right and wrong, fortified by such views of the 
 act as seem to him most conclusive, or as accord 
 nearest with the general tenor, spirit and purpose 
 of the Book of God, must determine what his prac- 
 tice shall be. 
 
 But it is not questionable, that Christ's law 
 on profanity forbids, not only the grosser modes 
 which have thus far constituted the burden of our 
 strictures, but, as well, certain modified forms of 
 swearing which many persons indulge who inno- 
 cently imagine that, by not including God's name 
 in them, they avoid the charge and guilt of pro- 
 fanity. While Christ certainly did not mean to 
 except the more direct and blasphemous abuse of 
 the divine name, yet, from what we can gather con- 
 cerning the immoralities of His times, it seems very 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 229 
 
 probable, that when He "opened His mouth" to 
 dissuade men from the indulgence of irreverent 
 speech, He referred more directly to this very habit 
 of swearing "by" anything, so that God's name is 
 not spoken, than to more flagrant expressions of 
 profanity. Still retaining some of the old-time 
 veneration for the divine name, such as distin- 
 guished their forefathers under the Mosaic, and 
 subsequent royal economy, the Jews of Christ's 
 day became so notoriously accustomed to this less 
 harsh, or smoother style of swearing, as to excite 
 the ridicule and disgust even of the heathenish 
 Gentiles. To the prevalence of this seemingly in- 
 nocent form of adjuration which, if we may be 
 allowed to make the comparison, is really more 
 cowardly than the round, outspoken oath of the 
 sinner who attempts no concealment of his empti- 
 ness of the fear of God, the erroneous instructions 
 of their corrupt teachers — the Scribes and Phari- 
 sees — largely contributed. One of their mischiev- 
 ous errors was, that it was not a violation of the 
 second commandment to swear by any creature. 
 Another, that no oath was binding in which the 
 name of God was not used. And another, that it 
 was not sinful to swear in ordinary conversation, 
 even by the name of God, "if what they swear 
 were true." Hence Christ's exclusive, absolute 
 prohibition, "Swear not at all," which, it may 
 but express His real intention to say, referred, 
 
230 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITI . 
 
 first, to the prevailing flippant and unnecessary use 
 of God's name in common life, and, secondly, in 
 His appended enumeration of several of them, to 
 the current minor forms of swearing which, as He 
 Himself explained,* though God's name was not 
 in them, were, nevertheless, essentially profane. 
 The oath-taker sometimes swore by Jerusalem, as 
 the Holy City ; or by its magnificent temple, or 
 altar; again by his own or some king's head, or 
 life ; or by his eyes, or some other equally precious 
 bodily organ ; or by the earth, the heaven, the sun, 
 and by angels. f The Jewish conceit, that such 
 imprecatory phases were harmless, in that they did 
 not abuse the divine name, was completely destroyed 
 by One whose judgment of what constitutes pro- 
 fanity is simply unimpeachable. 
 
 It is very common at the present day — this kind 
 of foolish, as well as profane, phraseology. Very 
 many persons habituate themselves to the use of 
 terms and ejaculations which, if Ave did not know 
 that they employed them as expressing the profane 
 feeling that actuated them, would really mean 
 nothing at all. There recurs to our memory at 
 this moment an expression which used to be fre- 
 quently on the lips of a distinguished personage, 
 but which we dare not mention, lest it should 
 make as deep and inextinguishable an impression 
 
 *Matt. xxiii. 16-22, 
 fUev. J.R, Beard, D.D. 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 231 
 
 upon the reader's as it male upon the writer's 
 mind when he first heard it — an expression so silly, 
 as well as oddly profane, that it makes us feel 
 almost as foolish in remembering, though we have 
 honestly tried to forget it, as was the gentlemanly 
 (?) swearer in uttering it. It is not, as we have 
 previously shown, an innocent thing thus to conceal, 
 as it were, the Supreme Being under phraseology 
 which is not outside of, or does not merelv border 
 upon, but, as the Master teaches, is actually within 
 the limits of profanity. 
 
 The least objection that we have to much of it, 
 current in the world and popularly supposed to be 
 harmless, is that it is ungrammatical, unrhetorical, 
 unmusical, inelegant, and out of taste. We can 
 tolerate bad grammar, faulty rhetoric and the lack 
 of musical rhythm in the every-day talk, either of 
 ordinary people of whom it would be quite unreason- 
 able to expect extraordinary linguistic excellence, or 
 of extraordinary people of whom it would be no less 
 unreasonable, perhaps, to expect always a scientifi- 
 cally-accurate observance of all known rules in their 
 ordinary conversation. Such blunders and imper- 
 fections of speech offend, at the most, but our taste, 
 if we may be supposed to have any ; the only guilt 
 they contract, if we may apply this word to them at 
 all, is the guilt of violating the axioms of one or 
 more merely human sciences, or of transgressing 
 the often arbitrary rules of what is termed " polite 
 
232 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 society." As we are far less jealous of men's 
 reputation for scholarship and merely exterior ac- 
 complishments than of the honor and majesty of the 
 Lord Jehovah, we care but little that their profane 
 utterances so often violate mere grammatical rules. 
 The scholar as such, may take exceptions to them 
 as evincing ignorance of the correct or proper use 
 of language. But if he be a Christian scholar, and 
 neither believes that language is given us "to con- 
 ceal our thoughts," nor entertains inadequate views 
 of the criminality, malignity, and tendencies of the 
 sin of swearing, his gravest objection to them will 
 be that, though His name is studiously avoided in 
 them, yet God records them as violations of His 
 law sufficiently aggravating, if not repented of, to 
 insure the ultimate damnation of the human soul. 
 There is all the force of a full rounded oath in any 
 expression to which is prefixed the particle "by," 
 and which is intended to answer the purpose of an 
 imprecation. Though not one of the divine names 
 is mentioned in them, but merely some creature, 
 whether real or imagined it matters not, or whether 
 known or unknown in heaven, on earth, or in hell, 
 it matters not, yet all exclamations, phrases, or ex- 
 pletives to which is prefixed the monosyllable " by," 
 with maledictive intent on the part of the speaker, 
 are essentially oaths, and, hence, are solemnly for- 
 bidden. 
 
 Included, also, in this category of interdicted ex- 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 283 
 
 pressions are all ejaculations in which are used one 
 or another of the divine names, but to which is not 
 prefixed the little word "by." There is a large 
 class of such profane exclamations, some of which 
 are frequently used by persons who do not deem it 
 a guilty habit, and yet think it a shocking thing, 
 perhaps, to swear. In a moment of surprise, or of 
 disappointment, or of anger, or to give emphatic 
 expression to the deep interest which something 
 told them or something that has happened begets 
 in them, they blurt out one or another holy name 
 in a manner which is not guiltless simply because 
 some other than the word "by" has been prefixed 
 to it. It does not sufficiently condemn this habit 
 merely to call it "unnecessary," "useless," or 
 "extravagant"; it is plainly a criminal habit, in 
 that it violates both the spirit and letter of the 
 second commandment. 
 
 It is in the interest of truth, honesty, righteous- 
 ness — indeed of every enviable virtue — that the Bible 
 says so much about our "lips" or "words"; that 
 it puts restrictions upon the " tongue " ; that it for- 
 bids peremptorily all intemperance of speech. Nor 
 is there any means by which the highest moral ex- 
 cellence may be reached more surely than by the 
 conscientious observance of Christ's command, touch- 
 ing our "communication." The Jews themselves 
 having become accustomed to say of one whose 
 probity was unimpeachable, " His yes is yes, and 
 
234 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 his no is no," He sanctified the popular maxim by 
 incorporating it into a law — "But let youh com- 
 munication BE, YEA, YEA; NAY, NAY " — which, 
 strictly and universally observed, would estop more 
 than half the discords, feuds, broils, contentions, 
 quarrels, mischiefs, and other evils, that now afflict 
 the human family. Ten thousand misunderstand- 
 ings, alienations of friendly feeling, and even vexa- 
 tious law-suits, would never happen if, as a rule, 
 men guarded their daily speech against the faults 
 of exaggeration and superfluous superlatives. It is 
 often that such "communication," and never more 
 than when profane expletives are superadded to it, 
 must be largely discounted before we can tell what 
 the speaker really means. To tell facts or things 
 just as they are, without allowing passion, prejudice, 
 anger, personal interest, or any other consideration 
 either to magnify or diminish them, is one of the 
 most distinguishing marks of an ingenuous char- 
 acter. 
 
 The reader has not often heard of a Friend who 
 was convicted of a lie. The very name, " Friend," 
 has become almost a synonym of peace, honesty, 
 and truthfulness. There is no people on earth of 
 more consistent integrity or unbending rectitude 
 than the sect which the world has nicknamed 
 "Quakers." A Friend's simple "yea" needs no 
 adjunctive terms to make what he affirms, nor does 
 ; nay " need any strong expletives to make what 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 235 
 
 he denies more credible. If he wishes to emphasize 
 his affirmation or denial, which is not at all a guilty 
 desire, there is no elocutionary form at once so in- 
 nocent and effective as his earnest repetition of the 
 particles "yea, yea; nay, nay." On hearing such 
 plain, direct, unequivocal answers to your inquiries 
 about one thing or another, or while engaged with 
 him in familiar conversation, you believe him at 
 once — you have not the least suspicion that what 
 he says stands in need of corroboration. Not the 
 least part of his religion is to cultivate the love of 
 truth, honesty, and simplicity, in doing which he 
 would come far short of the standard of excellence to 
 which he religiously aspires if he failed to discipline 
 his tongue . Though many , on observing it, may smile 
 at his simplicity of " communication," and see noth- 
 ing in it to admire, yet it certainly commends him 
 more to our praise than to our ridicule that the hon- 
 est, upright, inoffensive Friend should imitate the 
 example and so literally observe the command of 
 One whose "verily, verily" needed neither miracle 
 nor logical process to prove the enunciated truths to 
 which they were prefixed. 
 
 The use of the scriptural terms "thou" and 
 thee," and "yea" and "nay" in men's "commu- 
 nication" with each other may never become com- 
 mon nor popular. A literal observance of Christ's 
 command teaching such phraseology was not ex- 
 pected, perhaps, or intended by him ; and there are 
 
236 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 many to whom it may not appear desirable. Be 
 this as it may, yet it is not doubtful that it is acting 
 out the spirit of his precepts, or working towards 
 the end to which it was given, to cultivate, if not 
 critical simplicity, yet certainly purity of language 
 on all occasions. Our daily speech is to be so truth- 
 ful that it shall excite in no one the least suspicion 
 of our veracity ; so pure that it shall never suggest 
 a foul idea to others' imagination; so amiable that 
 it shall never give offense to any one ; so prudent 
 that it shall bring neither ourselves nor others into 
 trouble ; and so respectful, if religious matters are 
 mentioned, that no one's conscience or reverence 
 for sacred things shall be wounded. Borrowing his 
 metaphor from graceless Grecian wits whose ob- 
 scene and profane jests were applauded by their 
 heathenish fellows as being "Attic salt," and apply- 
 ing it to our daily converse, which, like the Lamb by 
 whose blood we have been redeemed from sin, should 
 be "without blemish and without spot," it is as well 
 the pleasing relish with which such cultivated speech 
 is enjoyed by the truly refined as the purity which 
 belongs to it that St. Paul represents where he says, 
 "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned 
 with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer 
 every man."* Should any object that such perfec- 
 tion of speech is hardly possible of attainment, it 
 may be sufficient to reply that Scripture never en- 
 
 *Col. iv. 6. 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 237 
 
 joins upon us impossible or impracticable things, 
 and that this very excellence entered into St. James' 
 ideal of finished character: "If any man offend not 
 in word, the same is a perfect man."* 
 
 We beg the reader, if he has followed us thus far 
 in our exposure of the hideous features of the vice 
 of profanity and is not yet convinced of its guilti- 
 ness, not to give place to the self-assuring notion, 
 that we are but magnifying an offense, or habit, 
 which after all is not very serious, or damaging to 
 one's well-being. Our views of its enormity are 
 certainly sustained both by the letter and the spirit 
 of the Word of God, while, if he thoughtfully con- 
 siders the gracious end to which it is given us, he 
 will as certainly sanction even the severest strictures 
 which any ^inspired pen may score against it. 
 To the thought of the apostle whom we have named 
 above, and whose strong interdiction of the sin was 
 inspired by the very Holy Being of whose honor 
 and glory he was so jealous, it must have appeared 
 as a form of wickedness which has no parallel 
 in baseness and malignity. Not that his estimate 
 of the heinous character of other sins was incom- 
 plete, or insufficient, but — hardly more, indeed, to 
 his own than other Christian minds — the habit of 
 profanity was too peculiarly wanton and aggravating 
 not to be specially condemned. Hence his remark- 
 able language — remarkable in that it seems to sink, 
 
 * James iii. 2. 
 
288 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 or conceal, all other sins as not being comparable 
 with it in guiltiness. "But above all things, 
 my brethren, swear not." 
 
 Solomon says, in effect, that swearing is the vice 
 of an impotent fool, or that it is no less an expres- 
 sion of weakness than of wickedness. The blatant, 
 shameless curser who, in the heat of passion, 
 scatters his oaths about him in every direction, 
 should feel thankful, if his moral nature has not 
 become too indurated to be c(uickened by such a 
 feeling, that his maledictions, uttered so often with- 
 out reason, motive, or, as he himself has confessed, 
 perhaps, without "meaning anything," are as 
 powerless, or ineffectual, as that wise man repre- 
 sents them — " As the bird by wandering, as the 
 swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not 
 come."* 
 
 Whatever may be the hidden meaning of the 
 visions of the apocalyptic seer, it is remarkably sig- 
 nificant of the horridness of the crime of profanity, 
 that, in one of them, not a maddened human being 
 but a monstrous savage beast, to which was tempo- 
 rarily given one of the distinguishing properties of 
 human nature, and this the power of speech, is de- 
 picted as indulging it to a fearful extent ; — 
 
 " And there was given unto him," — the beast — 
 "a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies: 
 
 *Prov. xxvi. 2. 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 239 
 
 and power was given unto him to continue forty and 
 two months. 
 
 "And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against 
 God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, 
 and them that dwell in heaven.''* 
 
 It is a sin so utterly foolish, and so inconsistent 
 with the profession of integrity, that the truly wise 
 and upright will never countenance it. It was a 
 satisfaction, indeed, wdiich Job felt in protesting that 
 he had never cursed an enemy — "Neither have I 
 suffered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his 
 soul."f 
 
 They certainly are wot friends of God who thus 
 persist in abusing His name. David describes, in a 
 single period, at once their spirit, their attitude 
 towards, or relation to Him and their d?aiger — 
 " Thine enemies take thy name in vain." \ Certainly 
 their expectations can only be wrath, since the very 
 term "enemy," as applied to the bold, daring, pre- 
 sumptuous sinner against God is a prophecy of his 
 fearful doom. The day may not be far off when 
 He will say Amen to the imprecations of such 
 enemies. His fiat having gone "forth over the 
 face of the whole earth," that "every one that 
 sweareth shall be cut off,"| He " will come near 
 to" them, in judgment, and "will be a swift witness 
 
 *Kev. xiii. 5, 6. f Job. xxxi. 30. 
 
 \ Ps. cxxxix. 20, || Zee. v. 3. 
 
240 ■ THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 against"* them. Turning their curses upon their 
 own heads ? to their repeated challenge, that He 
 should "damn" them, He will surely respond, 
 Amen — be it so ! 
 
 In one way or another this fearful vice affects 
 seriously all our interests, personal, social, and 
 religious. Nor is it exaggerating its destructive 
 importance or ascribing to it an evil, corrupting 
 influence too powerful and far-reaching, to assert 
 that it endangers even our national well-being. 
 The pathos of Jeremiah's lamentation over suffering 
 Judah, coming down the ages and wafted westward 
 over the great deep, may yet find expression in 
 some sad refrain echoing from hill to hill of our own 
 proud land. Touchingly graphic is his description 
 of a fearful, divine visitation under which his people 
 were afflicted almost beyond endurance : 
 
 " Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; 
 they are black unto the ground ; and the cry of Je- 
 rusalem is gone up. 
 
 " And their nobles have sent their little ones to 
 the waters ; they came to the pits, and found no 
 w T ater ; they returned with their vessels empty ; they 
 were ashamed and confounded, and covered their 
 heads. 
 
 " Because the ground is chapt, for there was no 
 rain in the earth, the ploughmen were ashamed, they 
 covered their heads. 
 
 *Mal. iii. 5. 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. - 241 
 
 "Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and for- 
 sook it, because there was no grass. 
 
 "And the wild asses did stand in the high places, 
 they snuffed up the wind like dragons ; their eyes 
 did fail, because there was no grass."* 
 
 Sympathizing so deeply with his suffering country 
 it was alike his pure patriotism — an instinct of hu- 
 man nature scarcely less strong than the love of our 
 own offspring — and loyalty to his Maker that 
 prompted his fearful denunciations of popular sins 
 and prophecies of furthur and still more terrible 
 retribution if the people failed to repent of them. 
 There were great "iniquities" which "testified 
 against" them, and of which the Lord had said, 
 " Shall I not visit them for these things ? * * * 
 shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as 
 this?"f and one of them is thus recorded by the 
 faithful prophet: 
 
 "BECAUSE OF SWEARING THE LAND 
 MOURNETH." £ 
 
 When the Israelites insolently demanded " a king 
 over" them, that they might "also be like all the 
 nations," || and God gave them Saul in his anger,§ it 
 is not on record in Scripture nor in the annals of 
 
 *Jer. xiv. 2-6. fJer. ix. 9. 
 
 t Jer. xxiii. 10. || 1 Sam. viii. 19, 20. 
 
 §Ho. xiii. 11. 
 11 
 
242 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 profane history that He utterly resigned His provi- 
 dential relation to all the peoples of the earth. Re- 
 sponding in his wrath to their offensive overture by 
 appointing "a king" whose reign became to them 
 more a penalty to be endured for their rebellion 
 against Him than such a privilege as they had im- 
 agined visible kingship among them to be, if He 
 ceased, therefore, to serve them as their supreme 
 political head, yet from that epoch of their history 
 down even to the present day, Israel, and as well 
 all contemporaneous peoples, have observed more or 
 less remarkable evidences of the truth that God is 
 the great moral Ruler of mankind. The nations of 
 the earth are much more independent of each other 
 than of him. God reigns! 
 
 "There is a power 
 Unseen, that rules the illimitable world, 
 That guides its motions from the brightest star 
 To the least dust of this sin-tainted mould ; 
 While man, who madly deems himself the lord 
 Of all, is naught but weakness and dependence."* 
 
 God rules ! Down through the ages and from 
 quarters of the earth where once flourished the most 
 powerful empires, but of whose walled cities not one 
 stone is left upon another, there comes a voice 
 which it is perilous for any existing people as such 
 to ignore. It is the voice of the Lord God Omni- 
 potent — 
 
 * Thomson . 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OF PROFANITY. 243 
 
 " I WILL BE EXALTED IN THE EARTH."* 
 
 It may seem physically impossible that our own 
 beloved land, "flowing with milk and honey" as it 
 is, and becoming, as it is to a large extent, the 
 granan r of the world, should ever be visited by 
 such a fearful general drouth as is so graphically 
 pictured by Jeremiah as afflicting Judah. To skep- 
 tical minds the suggestion that God may yet visit 
 us with such a calamity on account of our national 
 sins may seem quite incredible. But Christ's 
 dictum is a sufficient answer to such unbelief in 
 Providence — "With men this is impossible: but 
 with God all things are possible."! What are 
 physical impossibilities to us whose knowledge of 
 nature is limited to a few palpable things immedi- 
 ately around us, are not impossibilities to Him 
 before Avhom lie open the arcana of the universe. 
 
 Besides this, His resources are infinite. God's 
 quiver is full of arrows ; and while none ever misses 
 its aim, or all are equally effective, yet He chooses 
 now one and then another, in His warfare against 
 the wicked, to humble them in the dust — a warfare 
 in which He has often challenged nations as well as 
 individual sinners to try arms with Him. Leaving 
 much unwritten which might here be produced as 
 illustrating His moral government of the peoples of 
 the earth, we commend to the reader's attention, in 
 
 *Ps. xlvi. 10. fMat. xix. 26. 
 
244 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 concluding this chapter, Southey's scriptural as well 
 
 as rhythmical periods, as expressing the belief of all 
 
 Christendom touching the "Fate of Nations." 
 
 "But deem not thou some overruling Fate, 
 Directing all things with benign decree, 
 Through all the turmoil of this mortal state, 
 
 Appoints that what is best shall therefore be : 
 Even as from man his future doom proceeds, 
 So nations rise or fall, according to their deeds. 
 
 "The individual culprit may sometimes 
 Unpunished to his after-reckoning go : 
 
 Not thus collective man ; for public crimes 
 Draw on their proper punishment below : 
 
 When nations go astray, from age to age 
 
 The effects remain, a fatal heritage. 
 
 ' ' Bear witness, Egypt, thy huge monuments 
 Of priestly fraud and tyranny austere ! 
 Bear witness thou, whose only name presents 
 
 All holy feelings to religion dear — 
 In earth's dark circlet once the precious gem 
 Of living light— fallen Jerusalem ! " 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 
 FS it not the bounden duty of professed Christians, 
 -^- and, as well, of all non-professors who entertain 
 a just sense of the worth and dignity of moral char- 
 acter, to correct this vice, to the full extent of their 
 power ? It is a precept whose force and importance 
 the lapse of thirty-three centuries has not weakened 
 " Thou shalt in anywise rebuke thy neighbor, and 
 not suffer sin upon him."* 
 
 In many instances of neglect of this command, on 
 the part of avowed Christians, so far as it concerns 
 the vice in question, there is evinced more a want 
 of moral courage to discharge the duty than real 
 fear of losing the esteem of the swearer. He is 
 not rebuked — the shameless offender — not that the 
 Christian too deeply respects him to wound his feel- 
 ings, which is simply incredible, since no true 
 Christian can sincerely respect a man who, in his 
 presence, will deliberately blaspheme his Maker, 
 but that he is too cowardly to attack his sin. Is 
 it not a fact that should make us blush, that a 
 vast amount of sin in the world might be pre- 
 vented, or corrected, were Christians universally, as 
 their profession requires of them, a little more 
 
 * Lev. xix. 17. 
 ( 245 ) 
 
246 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 heroic in their spirit and attitude towards it? The 
 Christian who is afraid to do his duty betrays such 
 a lack of confidence in the presence and power of 
 the Master as should make him ashamed of himself; 
 and he who is forever sensitively or fastidiously 
 revolving the u expediency," and seldom, if ever 
 manfully considers as well the necessity of things, 
 will very likely die at last and leave the world no 
 better for the life that he spent in it. However 
 self-pleased such a person may feel, on reviewing 
 his life in its last hours, if time, memory and reason 
 enough are left him for such an exercise, that he 
 never offended any one — a very negative satisfac- 
 tion, indeed — yet there will be wanting in such a 
 retrospection the positive pleasure of knowing that 
 he has done some good in the world, although it 
 may have been done blunderingly. 
 
 It is remarkable that His own people, professedly 
 entertaining the deepest reverence for Him, should 
 ever consent to hear God's name abused without re- 
 buking the sinner. And it is more than remarkable 
 — it is astonishing, indeed — that any really godly 
 person should both consent, thus, to hear the blas- 
 phemy of the wicked in his presence, and not only 
 not rebuke it, but actually smile, perhaps laugh at 
 it, as if it afforded him amusement. A frown, not a 
 smile, is a more fitting facial response to such im- 
 piety — an indignant protest rather than a hearty 
 laugh. A look like the wounded Redeemer's, 
 
HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 247 
 
 which sent convicted Peter into a corner suffused 
 with penitential tears, may at least impress the 
 offender with a sense of his impropriety, if not con- 
 vict him. of sin. Or, if you cannot send the iron of 
 conviction into his soul by a look as expressive as 
 the Redeemer's, then a word, tenderly spoken, 
 uttered in a manner revealing how deeply you, as a 
 Christian, have been wounded by his — the swearer's 
 ■ — profanity, may find entrance into his conscience 
 " as a nail in a sure place," and work in him serious 
 thought, and ultimately repentance. It is a shock- 
 ing species of fun, reader, to which he stoops, who, 
 though made in the image of God, yet makes His 
 holy name the staple of, or uses it to give edge to, 
 his jests. Such a jester shall ultimately discover 
 that his wit was a two-edged sword, that wounded as 
 well himself as others at whom it was aimed. His 
 humour is a blessing to no one. Destructive, as it 
 is, of that sensitive reverence which every human 
 creature should ever cultivate towards his Creator, 
 it should not, therefore, be countenanced in any 
 manner whatever. An immortal being, as revela- 
 tion compels us to regard him, though for his own 
 good we could wish that he were not, so long as he 
 remained unconvinced of the enormity of his guilt, 
 yet there seem to be " but two marks of a man 
 about him, upright stature, and the power of play- 
 ing the fool, which a monkey has not. 5 '* Pity it 
 
 * Young. 
 
248 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 is, that when the swearer shocks others' ears by his 
 irrational profanity, he cannot at the same time 
 frighten himself out of the vile practice. If his 
 own ears have become so accustomed to the profan- 
 ity of his tongue that they have ceased to burn, as 
 it were, with shame, how should others, and especi- 
 ally Christian ears, be on their guard against such 
 a loss of moral sensitiveness. 
 
 Is there much difference in guiltiness between the 
 man who by his vulgar oaths insults his Maker, and 
 his friend, or boon companion, standing by, who by 
 his merriment endorses the flagitious act as a proper 
 object of amusement? Does not he become acces- 
 sory to another's sin, and, if accessory, then, in a 
 sense, guilty of it, who, though he could prevent it, 
 yet makes no effort to do so ? Is not he parti ceps 
 criminis — a party to the crime — who, by any 
 movement, though it be but a smile of approbation, 
 prompts or stimulates a sinner to violate divine or 
 human law ? Thus appears the sin of not rebuking 
 sin, when it can be done with any probability of 
 saving results. To any mind disposed to give this 
 important duty the thought it deserves, it cannot 
 seem an impossible thing, that guilt is contracted by 
 neglecting it. "As he who stands by and sees 
 another commit murder without giving an alarm is 
 accounted accessory to the murder; or as he who 
 sees a blind man running into a pit, in which heis 
 drowned, and makes no effort to save him, is guilty 
 
HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 249 
 
 of death ; so is he who sees his brother kill his soul 
 without an effort to prevent it." 
 
 It is a false delicacy of feeling that prevents the 
 Christian friends of a swearer, if he has such 
 friends, from expressing their judgment of the 
 enormity of his sin ; that frames pretexts for the 
 neglect of a duty taught in Scripture, if not as 
 frequently, yet no less plainly than that of prayer ; 
 that declines to express even a hint that he is 
 violating the divine law, lest they — the reprovers — 
 should be thought too officious, or puritanic, or over- 
 righteous. Such inexcusable fastidiousness was 
 once shamed by a king who had been himself re- 
 buked for his profanity. Riding along the highway 
 in disguise, and seeing a soldier at an inn, he 
 stopped and asked him to drink ale with him. On 
 an oath which the king spurted out while they were 
 drinking the soldier remarked : 
 
 "I am sorry to hear young gentlemen swear." 
 
 His majesty took no notice of it, but swore 
 again. The soldier immediately said : 
 
 "I'll pay part of the pot, if you please, and go; 
 for I so hate swearing, that if you were the king 
 himself I should tell you of it." 
 
 " Should you, indeed?" asked the king. 
 
 "I should," was the emphatic reply of his sub- 
 ject, 
 
 Not long after, the king gave him an opportunity 
 to be " as good as his word." Having invited some 
 11* 
 
250 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 lords to dine with him, he sent for the soldier, and 
 bade him to stand near him, in order to serve him, 
 if he were needed. Presently the king, not now 
 in disguise, uttered an oath. Very deferentially 
 the soldier immediately said: 
 
 " Should not my lord and king fear an oath ? " 
 
 Looking at the heroic soldier, and then at his 
 company of obsequious noblemen, the king severely 
 remarked: 
 
 " There, my lords, is an honest man; he can 
 respectfully remind me of the great sin of sw r earing, 
 but you can sit here and let me stain my soul by 
 swearing, and not so much as tell me of it! " Was 
 not the king's condemnation of his courtiers, for 
 their lack of moral courage, as truly deserved as his 
 commendation of the faithful soldier ? 
 
 As true as severe was the reply — at once a retort 
 and rebuke — which a traveler once made to a 
 coahman who said to him : 
 
 " That horse, sir, knows when I swear at him." 
 
 " Yes," said the travellei, " and so does your 
 Maker." 
 
 It was the rebuke of "a woman of the town," 
 so vile herself that she w T as shunned by all decent 
 people, that excited in him serious thought on the 
 wickedness of swearing, and brought to repentance 
 the now immortalized John Bunyan, the author of 
 that unrivalled allegory, the "Pilgrim's Progress," 
 a work which has had a larger circulation in the 
 
HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 251 
 
 world of literature, the Bible only excepted, than 
 any other ever issued from the press. The fact 
 that he was so profane as to excite the horror and 
 occasion the reproof of an abandoned woman, stung 
 him to the quick, and led to his conviction of sin 
 and conversion to Christ. It is hardly probable 
 that his reprover really intended, by her rebuke, to 
 do good; yet the results of her incidentally good 
 act are known and felt even down to the present 
 day. 
 
 The amount of good which it is in the power 
 more or less of every Christian to accomplish in this 
 easy manner is simply incalculable. A volume of 
 illustrations to this effect might be written, but one 
 or two may here suffice. a A merchant and ship- 
 owner of New York was standing at the entrance of 
 his warehouses conversing with a gentleman on 
 business. A pious sailor* belonging to one of his 
 
 * As on a dark night, here and there, a bright star peers 
 down upon us through the rifts of ominous clouds, twink- 
 ling in our faces the welcome intelligence that the heav- 
 ens are not all blackness ; or, as when traveling through 
 a desert or barren region of country, we are glad to see 
 something, here and there, that is beautiful, though it be 
 but an isolated flower, lifting its crown heavenward in 
 spite of the surrounding desolation; so when pitifully peer- 
 ing through the moral darkness resting upon certain 
 classes of sinners, how it gladdens us to discover a little 
 virtue still glimmering, here and there, among them — a 
 sense of moral responsibility of truth or goodness that 
 will not expire in spite of the extinguishing influences 
 
252 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 vessels, came to the warehouse to enter it, but 
 observing that the door was occupied, modestly 
 stepped aside, not willing to interrupt the conversa- 
 tion. While waiting there he heard the name of 
 Jesus profanely used ; and on turning to look, he 
 observed that it was his employer who was speak- 
 ing. Instantly changing his position, and standing 
 in front of the gentleman, with his head uncovered, 
 and his hat under his arm, he addressed the mer- 
 chant in this language — 
 
 " ' Sir, will you excuse me if I speak a word to 
 you?' 
 
 " The gentleman recognized him as one of the crew 
 of his vessel recently arrived, and supposing he 
 might have something to say about the business of 
 the ship, told him to speak on. 
 
 " 4 You won't be offended, then, sir, with a poor 
 ignorant sailor if he tells you his feelings ?' said he. 
 
 " ' Certainly not,' replied the merchant. 
 
 " ' Well, then, sir,' said the sailor, with much feel- 
 ing, ' will you be so kind as not to take the name of 
 my blessed Jesus in vain ? He is a good Saviour. 
 He "took my feet out of the horrible pit and miry 
 
 acting upon it. The possibility of the salvation of the 
 worst sinners on earth is suggested by the adjective which 
 is above applied to one of a host of indispensable workers, 
 of whom anything meritorious is but seldom spoken. It 
 is but recording a triumph of the gospel to be permitted 
 to write such a touching incident as is above quoted, of a 
 pious sailor. 
 
HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFAHITY. 253 
 
 clay, and established my goings/' sir! don't 3 if 
 
 you please, take the name of my Master, the Lord 
 Jesus, in vain ! He is your Creator as well as 
 mine : and He has made you, and preserves you, 
 and is always doing you good.' 
 
 " This was said with so much earnestness and feel- 
 ing that the gentleman was quite touched. His 
 exe^ filled with tears, and he said. 
 
 " ' My good fellow, God helping me, I will never 
 again take the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 Saviour, in vain. 5 
 
 u ' Thank you, sir,' said the honest sailor ; and 
 putting on his tarpaulin, he went away to his 
 work.''* 
 
 Was he not in the line of duty in thus "standing 
 up for Jesus?" And what better or truer friend on 
 earth had the profane i4 gentleman" than his ser- 
 vant, the pious sailor? 
 
 " A clergyman riding beside a profane coachman 
 who discharged volley after volley of oaths, fixing 
 his eyes upon him, said : 
 
 ic ; I cannot imagine what you will do in heaven ! 
 There are no horses, or coaches, or saddles, or 
 bridles, or public-houses, in heaven. There will be 
 no one to swear at, or to whom you can use bad 
 language. I cannot think what you will do when 
 you get to heaven!' 
 
 *JVcifl Encydop'idio. of Prose Illustrations, By Rev. Elon 
 Foster. 
 
254 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 u Years after, the same clergyman was called to 
 see a dying man, who told him that he was saved 
 through his rebuke, ' I cannot think what you will 
 do in heaven !' " 
 
 To the Christian who is sincerely anxious to do good 
 in the w r orld, who is not, and should not be, content 
 without doing something for Him who served the 
 world even to the sacrifice of His life, many prudent 
 expedients, or means, will suggest themselves by 
 which he may arrest and fix the attention of the 
 irreligious upon their easily-besetting sins. We 
 once knew a good man, now in heaven, who, before 
 he left his home to walk the streets, for one purpose 
 or another, was in the habit of folding up a religious 
 tract in a small square, and concealing it in the hol- 
 low of his right hand. On meeting some thought- 
 less, irreligious friend or acquaintance, and extend- 
 ing his hand to him, he would quietly slip it into his 
 possession, without uttering a word, in a formal 
 manner, on the subject of religion. Doubtless it is 
 his to know to-day something of the glory so graphi- 
 cally set forth by the prophet, " And they that be 
 wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament ; 
 and they that turn many to righteousness as the 
 stars forever and ever."* You are writing a letter to 
 some thoughtless friend; a single, brief sentence in 
 it, touching some objectionable habit on his part, may 
 
 • * Dan. xii. 3. 
 
HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 255 
 
 do him more good than a hundred eloquent sermons. 
 To some one whom you highly esteem you are about 
 to present a book, as an evidence of your friend- 
 ship ; it would neither detract from the merit or value 
 of the book, nor injure the fly-leaf, to write upon it 
 some favorite scripture — it may become as precious 
 to him as to yourself. 
 
 You may smile, reader, at such suggestions. But 
 look, if you will, at the innumerable little and great 
 expedients and devices used by the world to gain 
 merely secular ends ! How this busy, driving world 
 tortures its inventive genius for new modes of mak- 
 ing known its businesses, and, hence, of securing 
 patronage and temporal wealth. Witness, for in- 
 stance, the advertisements in the newspapers ; some 
 are even upside down ; others are illustrated by 
 cuts ; others, though containing but comparatively 
 few words, are made to occupy the space of an en- 
 tire column ; and still others are arranged in strange, 
 even grotesque or fantastic forms. All sorts of 
 modes are used to catch the reader's eye, and en- 
 gage his attention. Witness, too, the signs, mot- 
 toes, and artifices exposed to view along the busi- 
 ness streets of town or city. A stroll through the 
 busy marts of the metropolis would be worth the time 
 it required, and the fatigue it occasioned, simply to 
 note the wonderful art and ingenuity which the world 
 uses to arrest your eye, and divert your steps into its 
 places of trade and traffic. Shall so much ingenu- 
 

 256 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 ity, and art, and tact — so much planning and con- 
 triving, on the part of the world, in order to the at- 
 tainment of purely temporal ends — be commended, 
 and none be allowed for the infinitely greater object 
 of saving souls? How long shall "the children of 
 this world " be " Aviser in their generation than the 
 children of light?"* 
 
 Whatever authority attaches to the relations we 
 sustain to each other, should be exercised to the in- 
 terdiction of this vice. No father should admit a 
 swearer into companionship with his family. The 
 hallowed enclosure of "home, sweet home," should 
 ever be closed — barred and bolted — against his 
 visits, or " calls," who cannot be entertaining with- 
 out being wicked. It certainly cannot enhance the 
 pleasure of a family-circle, w^here just sentiments are 
 cultivated towards the Supreme Being, to hear His 
 name needlessly interjected in conversation, or used 
 in any other than a purely religious connection. If 
 there be a family-circle where it is a matter of in- 
 difference that one or more of its number, or some 
 other person happening in, now and then uses pro- 
 fanely the name of God ; or where it is not thought 
 to be a very objectionable practice to use the dia- 
 lect of the low and abandoned ; there, it may be 
 prophesied without the aid of inspiration, that any- 
 thing but the happiness which is divinely intended 
 by the family organization will ever prevail. It is 
 
 * Luke xvi. 8. 
 
 
HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 257 
 
 of infinite importance to the well-being of children, 
 that a religious atmosphere should pervade the home 
 of their early years. More dangerous than the in- 
 visible miasma which, unwittingly inhaled, incorpor- 
 ates its poison into the very blood of the physical 
 man and works his death, is the foul breath of the 
 swearer in a family-circle. This pollutes the soul ; 
 that destroys only the body. The loss in the one 
 case is but of temporal life, while in the other, some 
 one of that family-circle — it may be the brightest 
 and most promising of the little ones — is made to 
 incur the fearful risk of losing eternal life. As soon 
 think of welcoming a Herod into your home to slay 
 your innocents, as to allow a common swearer fre- 
 quent access to your family-circle. Such a familiar 
 acquaintance is not the less a dangerous enemy to 
 your home interests, in that he visits you often 
 under the guise of a friend. Better let your little 
 ones never hear it at all, if this be possible in a 
 Christian land, than let them hear from the lips of 
 any one, if he can be avoided, only profanations of 
 God's name. Rebuke the man who dares to dese- 
 crate your fireside by irreverent expressions. If it 
 offends him, though you do it never so kindly, be it 
 so ; the moral character of your children is of far 
 greater worth to you than his friendship who, by his 
 profanity in your house, proves his want of respect 
 for three parties — his Maker, your family-circle, and 
 himself. 
 
258 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 No young woman should encourage the addresses 
 of a swearer. Enamored as she may become of 
 such a suitor for her hand and heart, because of 
 some admirable qualities he may possess, yet it is 
 running a serious risk to pledge her "troth" at the 
 marriage-altar, and, too, for a lifetime, to one who 
 is utterly trothless or faithless towards his Maker. 
 She cannot reasonably expect that a man who can so 
 easily violate the first and easiest duty that he owes 
 his Creator, reverence, should ever become very 
 strict and rigid in observing the duties that he would 
 owe to a wife. Like " dead flies " in " the ointment 
 of the apothecary," the " little folly" of swearing, 
 as she might feel disposed to call it before she wed- 
 ded him, may afterward so far corrupt the good 
 qualities which she admired in him, that instead of 
 the kind and indulgent husband she expected, she 
 would find herself allied for life to a swearing tyrant. 
 If such considerations as personal appearance, social 
 connection, and ability to make a livelihood, are im- 
 portant to a young woman contemplating matri- 
 mony, much more is the single qualification of moral 
 character in her suitor. If this is questionable, and 
 by reason of this fact more than any other, mar- 
 riage appears to her, indeed, " a lottery," instead 
 of risking her happiness in his guardianship, she had 
 better give herself "the benefit of the doubt" by 
 dismissing her profane suitor. 
 
 All the pow r er to enforce discipline, attaching to 
 
HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 259 
 
 men in authority over others, should be used to the 
 prevention or correction of this horrid vice. "The 
 law of this ship," said a merchant to the captain, 
 while making a contract with him for a voyage to 
 India, "is, that there shall be no swearing either by 
 captain or crew." The captain expressed a willing- 
 ness to reform; "but," said he, "how can I sud- 
 denly break off an inveterate habit?" Handing 
 him a ring on which was inscribed the motto, " Swear 
 not at all," the merchant replied, " I will take care 
 that you are reminded of your duty — wear this ring, 
 and let the law of the vessel be explicitly known." 
 The vessel sailed for India, and eventually returned, 
 and it was found, on inquiry, that excepting within 
 the first few days after leaving port, there had been 
 no profaneness on board. The sailor's " inveterate 
 habit" had been destroyed. 
 
 Before he engaged his clerks, a merchant of 
 Edinburgh was accustomed to put this question to 
 them, "Do you swear? If so, you need not think 
 of entering my house. I permit none to talk to my 
 customers whose tongues are ' set on fire of hell.' ' 
 
 When St. Paul's "Cathedral, in London, was in 
 process of erection, the distinguished architect, Sir 
 Christopher Wren, caused a printed notice to be 
 affixed to the scaffolding, threatening with instant 
 dismissal any workman guilty of this wicked prac- 
 tice. That a master builder, or foreman of a shop, 
 or superintendent of a factory, has a right thus to 
 
260 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 dictate and enforce rules affecting the moral charac- 
 ter of his workmen or operatives, will be denied 
 only by those who entertain false and dangerous 
 views of what constitutes personal liberty. To em- 
 ployees who may feel restive under such restrictions, 
 whose propensity to the vice in question has become 
 so strong as almost to anger them when it is denied 
 gratification, it should be sufficient to know that the 
 will of the employer or proprietor is the law of his 
 establishment. And when it is considered that such 
 moral rules or regulations, enacted by employers, 
 whose right to make them is unquestionable, are 
 calculated no less to advance the best interests of 
 the employees themselves than to promote the pros- 
 perity of the business or work that engages their 
 time, it is difficult to conceive what reasonable ob- 
 jection could be offered for not printing and posting 
 them where all could read and ponder them in every 
 place m the land where workmen, in large or small 
 numbers, daily congregate. 
 
 It is gratifying to know that the immortal Wash- 
 ington cultivated a strong aversion to this vice of 
 profanity. He was scarcely a month Commander- 
 in-Chief of the Continental Army before he bore 
 unequivocal testimony against it. In one of his 
 first orders, as a military general, he says that, "he 
 hopes the officers will, by example as well as in- 
 fluence, endeavor to check it, and that both they 
 and the men will reflect that we can have little hope 
 
HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 261 
 
 of the blessing of Heaven on our arms if we insult 
 it by our impiety and folly." As illustrating how 
 deeply this mean vice, when practiced under his 
 notice, affected his manly nature, and, as an item of 
 historic interest to the reader, we shall here re- 
 produce, in full, one of his orders on swearing : 
 
 Headqtjartebs, Moore's House, > 
 West Point, July 29, 1779. > 
 
 Many and pointed orders have been issued against that 
 unmeaning and abominable custom of swearing, notwith- 
 standing which, with much regret, the General observes 
 that it prevails, if possible, more than ever; his feelings 
 are continually wounded by the oaths and imprecations 
 of the soldiers whenever he is in hearing of them. 
 
 The name of that Being from whose bountiful goodness 
 we are permitted, to exist and enjoy the comforts of life, 
 is incessantly imprecated and profaned in a manner as 
 wanton as it is shocking. For the sake, therefore, of re- 
 ligion, decency, and order, the General hopes and trusts 
 that the officers of every rank will use their influence and 
 authority to check a vice which is as unprofitable as it is 
 wicked and shameful. 
 
 If officers would make it an unavoidable rule to repri- 
 mand, and, if that does not do, punish soldiers for offences 
 of this kind, it could not fail of having the desired effect. 
 
 George Washington. 
 
 These hints and suggestions from the pen of our 
 beloved Washington — the first military chieftain of 
 the American Republic — as to how this vice may 
 be suppressed among our soldiery, are certainly 
 worthy of experiment on their part whom the gov- 
 ernment has invested with any degree of military 
 authority. 
 
262 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 It is much to be regretted, that the laws enacted 
 against profanity now and then, by our respective 
 state legislatures, are not enforced. The interest 
 that prompts it cannot be real, else with the enact- 
 ment there would certainly be detailed means by 
 which it might be executed — means, at all events, 
 more effectual than such as are usually ordered by 
 such legislation. As an empty compliment to the 
 religious sentiment of the Commonwealth, or in a 
 sort of feverish excitement of their moral sense, our 
 wise legislators gravely — some, indeed, discuss and 
 act upon the matter, more as if they were about to 
 perpetrate a good joke than to enact a criminal law 
 — vote, that the person who blasphemes his Maker 
 shall be held, too, as committing a crime against the 
 interests of the State ; and, therefore, shall be pun- 
 ished. But the enactment is scarcely worth the 
 time consumed in its discussion, or the paper on 
 which it is engrossed, for the well-known reason 
 that it is very seldom, if ever, enforced. It is 
 doubtful whether for many years there has been a 
 single instance of arrest and conviction for profanity 
 in a majority of our United States, while in the 
 others it is not known that any such instance has 
 ever transpired ; although it is probable that there 
 is not a State in the Union which has no law forbid- 
 ding the crime. Maryland has recently exhibited 
 signs of consciousness of the enormity and increase 
 of the vice. Her legislators re-enacted an old law, 
 
HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 263 
 
 " to punish by fine and imprisonment in jail, at the 
 
 discretion of the court, any person who shall pro- 
 fanely curse and swear or use obscene language on 
 or near any street or highway within the hearing of 
 any person passing." Though the wit of her sec- 
 ular press which, commenting on this legislative ac- 
 tion, su jested that she would be obliged to in- 
 crease largely her number of jails, may excite a 
 smile, yet it covers this most melancholy and humil- 
 iating confession, that immorality prevails to such 
 an extent within her borders, that her present 
 means of enforcing laws looking to its prevention, 
 or correction, are incompetent to this end. 
 
 If it be not a mere figment of superstitious belief, 
 but a truth which hardly needs historic proof to 
 make it credible, and which is not less acknowledged 
 by legislators than by divines, that a nation's best 
 guarantee of perpetuity lies in the moral princij)le3 
 by which it is actuated ; or that there is no surer 
 promise than gross immorality, if not of its utter ex- 
 tinction yet of its ultimate disintegration, or of such 
 derangements and disorders in society as would 
 make it almost impossible to preserve the mere 
 forms of government, what criminal inconsistency it 
 is that any State of this boastful Republic should 
 solemnly and officially enact a law stamping pro- 
 fanity as a crime against its peace and good order, 
 yet neither define the means by which it shall be 
 executed, nor even expect that it will be executed at 
 
264 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 all. Does not such legislation rather encourage 
 than suppress the vice ? Is it not the merest farce, 
 with which "the powers that be" expect to quiet 
 for a time the religious sensibilities of the better 
 portions of their constituencies ? It is, at all events, 
 a moral entertainment which has long since lost its 
 attractiveness to the Christian mind of the state or 
 nation. 
 
 The frequency of perjury in this irreverent age 
 should quicken, one would think, their apprehension 
 of still greater evils, if there be any other that can 
 work greater injury upon the commonwealth, whom 
 the people elect to serve them as guardians of the 
 public weal. The tendency from the habit of com- 
 mon swearing to the formal and illegal act of per- 
 jury is very easy and natural. A man who, on any 
 occasion when the impulse seizes him — the impulse 
 of anger or of "fun " — can unblushingly appeal to 
 God as vouching for some thoughtless, perhaps 
 wicked assertion, can hardly be supposed to have 
 suddenly become so conscientious that he would let 
 the mere formal act of kissing the Bible, in response 
 to the mechanically-expressed challenge of the clerk 
 of the court, prevent him from telling a lie ; espe- 
 cially if a full revelation of what he knew of the 
 matter at issue before the court would somewhat re- 
 flect upon himself. It is antecedently improbable 
 that such a witness should deeply appreciate the 
 sanctities of an oath. If his religious convictions 
 
HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 265 
 
 are so feeble, or his sense of moral responsibility is 
 so indifferent, that ordinarily he is not restrained 
 thereby from committing the less offence of pro- 
 faning the divine name — less only that the law takes 
 no notice of it — it is not at all likely that the cir- 
 cumstances confronting him in a court-room will im- 
 press him so deeply, or work such a change in his 
 moral feelings, that he will fear to incur the guilt of 
 the greater offence of perjury. There is no regen- 
 erative efficacy in judicial swearing. The presence 
 of "the court," the flippant, and often really irre- 
 liofious manner of administering the religious obliga- 
 tion of an oath, the vexatious badgering of rival 
 lawyers — such incidents of the court-room exert 
 no such sanctifying influence upon a common swearer 
 as will make him, for the time being, conscientious 
 enough to tell a story that everybody will believe. 
 Having cast off all fear of God — a fact which his 
 daily profanity clearly proves — it would be a re- 
 markable instance, indeed, of instantaneous conver- 
 sion if, in the atmosphere of the bench and the bar, 
 he was suddenly seized with such reverential awe of 
 Him as would make him hesitate to appeal to Him, 
 through a judicial oath, to witness a falsehood. Our 
 suspicion of the veracity of such a witness is almost 
 irrepressible. We cannot easily shake off the con- 
 viction that his long indulgence of a sin which is so 
 very hateful to the Divine Being that, singling it 
 out from all others denounced in the decalogue, He 
 12 
 
266 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 gave it special prominence as being prohibited, dis- 
 qualifies him for the taking of a judicial oath; and 
 it is the deliberate judgment of many thoughtful 
 moralists that it should absolutely debar him from 
 assuming its solemn obligations. 
 
 CD O 
 
 While we would hesitate to declare that we would 
 not believe under oath every swearer called to act 
 as a witness in suits at law, yet we have no hesita- 
 tion in stating that of all the reasons that might be 
 given for not believing under oath such a witness, 
 there is none of more force, to our mind, than the 
 naked, ugly fact that he is a common swearer. In 
 such a character there is not sufficient veneration 
 for the Supreme Being to suggest the thought that 
 perjury is a very grave crime. 
 
 These hints on the evident natural relation, of 
 common swearing to perjury, intimate as well what 
 our law-administrators should do to suppress the 
 vice. If it tends so directly and surely to perjury 
 — a crime which would completely defeat all the 
 ends of justice were our courts but half as indul- 
 gent of it as they are of common profanity — it is 
 certainly in the line of their official duties, while 
 the moral and material interests of the Common- 
 wealth would be made much more secure and enjoy- 
 able, to use the strong arm of the law — a "terror" 
 only to " evil-doers" — to prevent it, so far as law 
 can do so. Stricter legislation is not asked for, 
 but more efficient means of executing the statutes 
 
HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 267 
 
 on profanity, which, though beautifully engrossed 
 on the books of the legislature, we would hardly 
 know had any existence at all, if the press did not 
 report them to the public now and then. 
 
 Nor should the pulpit fail to handle this hideous 
 vice "without gloves." It is so very common in 
 the world, and, as stated in a former chapter, is 
 practiced in so many instances by professed church 
 members, that we can hardly regard the minister 
 as coming up to the full measure of his duty who 
 neglects to excoriate it as it deserves. It is all 
 very well to be flying heavenward every Sunday on 
 the wings of impassioned eloquence, with a congre- 
 gation of several hundred — perhaps a thousand — 
 enraptured hearers gazing at our flight with admir- 
 ation, and wishing, perhaps, that they, too, could 
 set there so easilv and beautifully. But mean- 
 while the people should be kept deeply impressed 
 with this plainest truth of the Gospel, that no ac- 
 tual ascension thither is possible unless they are 
 first saved from sin. 
 
 It is, too, quite within the scope of our high call- 
 ing — we speak now as one of sixty thousand minis- 
 ters of our profane land, on whom rests the grave 
 responsibility of educating the public conscience in 
 the law of God — to deal out intense invectives, now 
 and then, against sin in general. There are but 
 few pulpit subjects on which more touching things 
 may be said. Pathos, description, denunciation, 
 
268 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 warning and exhortation — all the elements, indeed, 
 of effective oratory — may, and ought to be, pressed 
 into service by the " mouth-piece of God" when sin, 
 " the abominable thing," which he " hates," is the 
 topic of the sermon. But we should particularize 
 a little now and then. " Glittering generalities," 
 like the broad sheet lightning of a summer evening, 
 hurt no one ; it is the quick, sharp stroke that kills. 
 It is not unauthorized personality, but just such as 
 Scripture* enjoins to single out the sin, be it what 
 it may, which seems most to prevail among the peo- 
 ple, and expose it in all its hideousness. If this be 
 not one of the most important functions of the 
 Christian ministry, then have we been studying its 
 obligations or requirements for more than a score 
 of years to no purpose. 
 
 And in attacking these particular sins, ours 
 should be a spirit as determined and resolute, and 
 our aim as direct, as was the Quaker's, of whom we 
 have read. Discovering a thief in his house, he 
 took down his grandfather's old fowling-piece, and 
 quietly said, " Friend, thee had better get out of the 
 way; for I intend to fire this gun right ivhere thee 
 stands." The sensitive minister who fears that 
 such direct preaching may hurt the sinners of his 
 congregation, should cultivate, what we shall term, 
 a little elocutionary dexterity, so that he may do 
 
 *Ezek. iii. 18. 
 
HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 269 
 
 his duty as effectively as the famous Cretan archer ; 
 he saw a vile reptile slowly coiling itself about the 
 body of his beloved son ; seizing his bow, and 
 quietly adjusting to it an arrow, he raised it to his 
 eye, and aimed, and propelled it so directly that it 
 pierced the serpent ; loosening its coils, it fell upon 
 the ground, and his boy stood up unharmed and 
 saved. It is but working towards the complete con- 
 summation of the grand end of the Redeemer's mis- 
 sion thus to destroy sin, in order to the salvation of 
 the sinner. 
 
 How often the pulpit should dwell on the malig- 
 nity, tendencies and consequences of this common 
 vice, it must be left to the conscience and good 
 judgment of ministers themselves to determine. 
 There are communities where it is comparatively 
 unknown. But even there it would contribute to 
 the creation of a deep, strong public sentiment 
 against it, if their ministers only occasionally lifted 
 up their voices to condemn it. How ministers who 
 are invested with the sacred prerogative of vindicat- 
 ing tfre glory of God against the wickedness of man, 
 can wink at, or completely ignore, the vice, in com- 
 munities where it is known largely to prevail, we 
 would not here venture to explain. If, as Colton 
 says, " opinions, like showers, are generated in high 
 places," whence " they invariably descend into low 
 ones, and ultimately flow down to the people as the 
 rains unto the sea," then should the pulpit, the 
 
270 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 highest place on earth that man can occupy, con- 
 scientiously cultivate and heroically thunder out 
 such positive, decisive "opinions" concerning pro- 
 fanity as, descending to, or flowing down upon the 
 people, shall make their common sentiment towards 
 it somewhat, as Mrs. Jameson says, "like a sharp 
 knife;" the foolish sw r earer, " who, in rashness or 
 defiance," should "seize it by the blade," would but 
 " get cut and mangled for his pains." 
 
 It is with no little gratification that we observe, 
 in different directions, signs of an awakened sense 
 of the enormity of this vice, and of the necessity of 
 methods by which its further indulgence may be 
 prevented. The New York " Business Men's Noon- 
 Day Prayer-Meeting" recently adopted strong reso- 
 lutions condemning it, and suggesting means of ar- 
 resting the evil. Such action on the part of promi- 
 nent business men in the metropolis, whose influ- 
 ence is so far-reaching, is worthy of imitation by 
 other bodies of citizens in other localities who are 
 at all interested as well in the moral as in the ma- 
 terial well-being of the communities in which they 
 live. We have lately learned, too, of a society in 
 Savannah, Ga., organized for the specific purpose of 
 preventing common swearing. A solemn pledge is 
 taken by the members, on their initiation, that they 
 will never use profane language ; and, if we mistake 
 not, it is also required of them that they shall try to 
 prevent others from doing it. We see nothing to 
 
HOW TO SUPPRESS PROFANITY. 271 
 
 condemn , but much to commend, in such an organiza- 
 tion. As certain diseases require specific treatment, 
 in order to the healthiness of the physical man, so 
 certain vices seem to require particular treatment in 
 order to the soundness of the moral man. It has 
 come to our knowledge, too, that the temperance 
 pledge, in some places where interest is still felt in 
 the cause it subserves, has been amended so as to 
 include a prohibition of profane language. With all 
 our heart we " second the amendment." Indeed, 
 we heartily "second" any means, not in itself evil, 
 and which is at all effective, by which sin may be 
 extinguished, believing with John Bunyan, that 
 
 "Hell soon would lose its heat, could sin expire." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 
 
 "TTTE would feel that we had failed in duty, if, 
 * * having candidly expressed our judgment of 
 the inexcusableness, the uselessness, the vulgarity, 
 and the sin of swearing, w r e closed this essay without 
 appealing to you to desist from it. We take it that, 
 having read the preceding pages, you concede that 
 the strictures there expressed on this vile habit are 
 true. If they deserve any thought at all, you will 
 not feel offended if we now directly urge you to re- 
 pent of and never again indulge this demoralizing 
 sin. 
 
 We appeal to you, then, by His patience and 
 long -suffering whose solemn name you have so 
 often profaned, to abstain from it. Suppose you 
 heard that the name of your father was being used 
 disrespectfully by different parties ; that, as men 
 walked the streets for one purpose or another, they 
 frequently mentioned it very insultingly ; that gangs 
 of vile characters, carousing in low bar-rooms, or stroll- 
 ing along the piers, or gathering together wherever 
 their idle inclinations led them, were bandying it 
 from mouth to mouth most contemptuously ; that 
 there were many persons who never uttered it ex- 
 (272) 
 
AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 273 
 
 cept to abuse it, how long could you tolerate such 
 an offence ? If you could at all reach them by the 
 strong arm of the law, would you not punish them 
 in righteous indignation at their wickedness ? Or 
 if you found yourself unable thus to put a stop to 
 their malignant course, would it not hurt you to the 
 quick to know, that for no cause that he has given 
 them, yet daily and hourly they were thus injuring 
 his good name? If you are not " without natural 
 affection," you could not but feel aggrieved that 
 others so wantonly abused him. 
 
 But suppose you yourself were heard, time and 
 again, ill-using thus your father's name. On dis- 
 covering, in a thoughtful moment, the enormity of 
 such an unfilial offence, what could you think of 
 yourself ? Would you not conclude that if others 
 called you a monster, you would deserve the bad 
 distinction! Yet it is this very thing which you 
 have been doing, and, perhaps, for many years, 
 only it is not the name of your earthly, but of " our 
 Father which is in heaven" — mine, as well as yours 
 — which you have been despising — a fact which 
 does not diminish, but aggravates the guilt of your 
 sin. Not more distinct and appreciable is the rela- 
 tion that attaches you to your children, if you are 
 a father, than is the relation He sustains to you as 
 your Creator. And as you would certainly deem 
 your son worthy of chastisement, if he habitually 
 cast odium upon your name, if he mentioned it dis- 
 12* 
 
274 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 respectfully again and again, and thus dishonored 
 you — a judgment which would be fully sustained by 
 the fearful scripture, "Cursed be he that setteth 
 light by his father or his mother : and all the peo- 
 ple shall say, Amen"* — so you cannot think it an 
 unreasonable alternative, that if you persist in the 
 unnatural and maleficent habit of profaning the 
 sanctities of His name, your Maker should at length 
 visit you for it. 
 
 That thus far in your life, He has not done so, is 
 no evidence that He has divested Himself of His jus- 
 tice, and that, winking at your sin, He will ulti- 
 mately save you, notwithstanding your guilt or of- 
 fensive conduct toward Him. True, his sword is 
 sheathed — sheathed in the scepter of mercy as its 
 scabbard, where it is but resting, not rusting. He 
 has not destroyed, but simply delayed its use. Not 
 less " a consuming fire" now than in Old Testament 
 times, the embers of His wrath are but smouldering 
 for a season to burst out more terribly upon His 
 enemies when the mighty conflict between good and 
 evil which has been carried on for so many centuries 
 within the arena of this fallen world — a conflict for 
 a prize, the human soul, more valuable than the 
 whole material universe — shall have closed its last 
 campaign. He is "the same yesterday, and to-day, 
 and forever." Now that the eternal state towards 
 which the immortal soul is gravitating as inevitably 
 
 * Deut. xxvii. 16. 
 
AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 275 
 
 as its immaterial counterpart — the body — tends 
 towards its original dust, is more clearly revealed, 
 it seems to be less necessary, in His economy of 
 grace, that God should display His indignation 
 against the profane, by such immediate, temporal 
 and terrible tokens as He used in ancient times. 
 Nevertheless He is a sure paymaster. If He pays 
 not "on sight" what is due to men, yet He is 
 an accountant who never fails to enter a credit ^ or 
 debit. His books are infallibly correct. If He 
 does not balance your account with Him daily or 
 weekly, or even monthly or yearly, yet you may 
 be sure that when the final settlement is made 
 there will be no mistakes — you will receive exactly 
 what is due to you. 
 
 For this reason, then, that He has not yet settled 
 with you, that He withholds His wrath, that He 
 bears with you and forbears to punish you for your 
 profanity, we beg you not to indulge any longer this 
 provoking sin. Your persistence in this vile habit 
 is an abuse of His long-suffering as well as of His 
 name. It is not impossible that, in some unguarded 
 moment, He should take you at your word ; that, 
 daringly and madly imprecating damnation upon 
 yourself, He should instantly answer you, by letting 
 you slide down into perdition. Many instances, as 
 strongly attested as the doubtful might require be- 
 fore they would accept them as being true, have 
 transpired, in which bold, defiant swearers, thus 
 
276 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 challenging the Almighty to curse them, have had 
 their challenge answered, even before it was fully 
 uttered ! Quick as the thunderbolt cleaving the 
 gnarled oak and tearing its foliage into shreds, ven- 
 geance came, and they departed this life, to walk 
 the solemn rounds of the future, with the unfinished 
 malediction trembling upon their tongues. We beg 
 you, dear friend, to be careful! Do not, oh, do 
 not trifle with the Almighty ! 
 
 We appeal to you further, to desist from this 
 soul-destroying vice, for your oivn sake! You 
 have no more right to injure yourself than to injure 
 others. The admonition that St. Paul thundered 
 down the corridors of the Philippian prison ; that ar- 
 rested and wrenched out of his hand, the frightened 
 jailor's sword, by which he expected to become his 
 own executioner, " Do thyself no harm!" sounds 
 more or less distinctly from every book of the 
 Scriptures. Indeed, " the volume of the book" is 
 but a " great trumpet" through which the Creator 
 is ever sounding to every fallen child of Adam, " Do 
 thyself no harm!" There is no vice you commit 
 that can be excused by the plea, that it hurts no 
 one but yourself. The recklessness that begets in 
 you such a feeling is in itself criminal. 
 
 One of the first duties incumbent on you as an 
 intelligent, accountable being — a duty w T hich you 
 cannot ignore without suffering — is to care for your- 
 self. How long could you live, if it were possible 
 
AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 277 
 
 to divest yourself of all self-care ? Nature surely 
 would soon punish you for such a voluntary renun- 
 ciation of her law of self-preservation. If you re- 
 fused to eat because it requires some personal effort 
 to get food, she would let you starve. If you were 
 so utterly careless of your well-being that you re- 
 fused to stoop down and dip out of one of her ten 
 thousand bubbling springs, she would hardly lift a 
 hand to plash the water herself upon your parched 
 lips. If she found you in an exposed condition, 
 she would not arrest her thunders, and quench her 
 lightnings, and restrain the winds, and thus moder- 
 ate the driving storm, because you are not disposed 
 to seek shelter. Thankful should we be that nature 
 acts towards us, not passively, as if she thought it 
 were enough, on her part, quietly to respect the 
 power we possess of caring for ourselves ; but she 
 actually and generously rewards us when we use it, 
 by prospering our health, and increasing our sub- 
 stance, and thus adding to our enjoyment of this 
 present life. There is nothing, then, of the ring 
 either of nature, or of common sense, in the spe- 
 cious expression which sometimes falls from the lips 
 of the profane, when reproved for their swearing — 
 an expression to which we cannot attach the dignity 
 of an " objection" — " I don't care ; it hurts no one 
 but myself." But you do care for yourself, swearer, 
 nor could we think you rational if you did not. It 
 is as natural for you to do so, as to eat when you 
 
278 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 are hungry, or drink when you are thirsty, or sleep 
 when you are weary. The veriest idiot reveals, in 
 one way or another, or to some extent, the existence 
 of this inherent instinct, which is no less common, 
 indeed, to brute than to human creatures. 
 
 Would that we could deepen in you that sense of 
 personality of which it is not possible that you can 
 rid yourself. It is a very impressive truth- — one 
 that should make you thoughtful of the responsi- 
 bilities of your being — that you carry with you an 
 individuality that distinguishes you from every other 
 creature of God in the universe. Like all other 
 human beings in some general respects, yet in cer- 
 tain specific features you are distinct, or separate 
 from all of them. You are no more exactly like 
 any other person than are any two specimens, of 
 God's handiwork alike in any department of His 
 creation — a statement that becomes startling, in- 
 deed, as one vainly attempts to estimate the incon- 
 ceivably vast number of human beings who have 
 lived and died upon the earth since man's creation, 
 and each one of whom, separately from all the rest, 
 was as distinctively a person as yourself. 
 
 Nor can you ever lose your personal identity. 
 Never can you mingle so intimately with others of 
 like nature that, becoming, in a sense, a part of 
 them, you shall, in time, extinguish your own self. 
 Close and familiar as may be your fellowships with 
 others, yet you can never merge in them so far that 
 
AN APPEAL TO THE PROF AXE. 279 
 
 your own individuality will ultimately disappear. 
 You are now, and always will be, counted as one of 
 the vast aggregate of intelligent human creatures, 
 whose destiny in the future, is determined by their 
 conduct in the present world. In the midst of the 
 immense throng that shall some day surge to and 
 fro before the great white throne — so mighty the 
 host that the mind almost reels as it attempts to 
 compass it — you will stand as distinctively a person 
 as He who intends to sit upon the throne of thrones. 
 And ever and forever amid the countless myriads of 
 the spirit-world, whirling through immeasurable 
 space, you will remain, like them, it is true, in some 
 general features, yet in certain others, distinct, 
 separate from all. 
 
 We entreat you, then, swearer, to respect your 
 self. It is said that there are mirrors which, if you 
 stand before them within a given distance, will re- 
 produce your entire form or figure, as standing be- 
 tween the glass and your real person. A strange 
 feeling, mostly of surprise and not unmingled with 
 fear, seizes the curious one who ventures thus to 
 scrutinize himself. What would be your feeling if, 
 when uttering some vulgar, blasphemous expression, 
 you could thus for a moment, see and hear yourself? 
 Would you not feel ashamed of him? 
 
 We appeal to you again to quit this wicked habit 
 for others' sake! How many may have learned 
 the dialect of profanity from your lips? True, not 
 
280 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 in a formal manner, as you would teach a child the 
 alphabet, have you taught them how to blaspheme 
 their Maker. Doubtless you would denounce a man 
 as being the very impersonation of evil who dared 
 thus to instruct others in the literature of sin. As- 
 suming that you have never done this, that you are 
 not so utterly thoughtless of the tendencies, tyranny, 
 and consequences of crime, or senseless of moral 
 obligation, that you could sit down, and by one 
 formal verbal lesson after another, calmly and pa- 
 tiently teach others how to bring upon themselves 
 shame and disgrace in this, and eternal wretchedness 
 in the future life ; yet it is, nevertheless, a startling 
 fact, that you are doing this very thing by a far 
 shorter and more effective means, the tuition of ex- 
 ample. May there not be, within the circle of your 
 acquaintanceship, more than one whose bad words 
 in conversation are but repetitions of your ex- 
 pressions? May there not be children who are 
 practicing the phraseology of crime as it rolls off 
 your tongue ? How shocking, too, the thought that 
 some of the most beloved of the little ones thus in- 
 structed may be your own — bone of your bone, and 
 flesh of your flesh ! They may have heard you 
 swear so often that they have come, not only to ex- 
 pect it of you even on the least occasions, but even 
 to rival your profanity. If it is a relief to you to 
 nurse the thought that they swear merely by rote, 
 or are too young to know what they are doing, and, 
 
AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 281 
 
 hence, that they remain as innocent as irresponsible 
 parrots which have been taught guilty words, yet, 
 surely, it cannot make you comfortable to be told 
 that till they reach an age when they can realize 
 the enormity of such a sin, every oath they utter is 
 chargeable on your account! And ever afterwards, 
 if they pursue the career of wickedness of which, in 
 ten thousand instances, profanity proves itself to 
 have been the initial step, it will contribute nothing 
 to your satisfaction to remember that it was you — 
 their own father — who gave them a start hellward. 
 The assertion is not extravagant, that no au- 
 thority attaching to the relation which a pro- 
 fane father sustains to such unpromising children, 
 can prevent them from accepting and acting upon the 
 tuition of his bad example. It is simply impossible 
 that any one can restrain or annihilate the influence 
 that he is exerting upon other persons. If it be 
 good, he will not wish to do this ; he will be glad 
 that they are being improved by contact with him. 
 If it be evil, he has not the power to hinder or limit 
 its operations. Rising wrathfully from his chair 
 and making for his son — a little fellow who was just 
 beginning to speak plainly — said a swearing father 
 roughly, "I'll whip you till you can't stand!" 
 What had the child done to deserve such severe 
 chastisement ? Like the youngling listening to and 
 mimicking the parent-bird till it has perfectly learned 
 every rounded note, he had just uttered several full, 
 
282 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 round oaths, which the angry father had often blurted 
 out in his hearing. He had re-produced them with 
 all the startling distinctness and emphasis of his 
 father's manner. So shocked was the father at this 
 repetition of his blasphemy by his own prattling 
 boy, that he madly exclaimed, " I'll whip you till 
 you can't stand !" But a thunderbolt could hardly 
 have startled him more than the quiet response of 
 the little fellow : looking the irate father in the eve, 
 he said, " Father , if you whip me, who will whip 
 youf 
 
 Oh, swearer, what infinite harm you are doing, 
 not yourself alone but others as well, and especially 
 the young, by your example of profanity! You 
 are weakening their sense of reverence for the Su- 
 preme Being — a feeling which, in order to their 
 highest good, it is absolutely necessary for them to 
 cultivate. Though they shall never be able to ex- 
 tinguish it entirely, yet you are encouraging them 
 to let their idea or thought of God become so vague 
 and indistinct — so inoperative, indeed — as to lose 
 whatever moral force it may have had hitherto in 
 restraining them from vicious and prompting them 
 to virtuous habits. Every flippant violation of the 
 sanctities of the divine name is to them a denial, in 
 effect, on your part of all the utterances of Scripture 
 about " the fear of the Lord," that it "is the begin- 
 ning of wisdom," that it " is to hate evil," that it 
 " prolongeth days," or " tendeth to life," and so on. 
 
AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 283 
 
 By enfeebling, thus, if not destroying, at once their 
 feeling of reverence for the Deity and their respect 
 for His "Word, you are making it easy for them to 
 begin and pursue a life of infamy and shame. The 
 lengths of wickedness to which they may be carried 
 
 O J.J 
 
 by the momentum which you thus give the evil in- 
 clinations of their fallen nature — inclinations which 
 need but little encouragement to involve the sinner 
 in the deepest guilt — may yet appal even yourself, 
 should you live long enough to read the history of 
 their manhood or womanhood. 
 
 We beg you, therefore, swearer, to shake off this 
 soul-destroying vice. Shake it off as you would 
 shake from you a poisonous viper, trying to fasten 
 its fangs upon your person. If you insist that we 
 shall not cultivate and express quite so much inter- 
 est in yourself, that you are quite competent enough 
 to take care of yourself without the gratuitous 
 counsels of officious friends, and that when you 
 begin to see that the vice is really injuring yourself 
 you will quit it, then, for the sake of others who are 
 learning the horrid dialect of crime from your lips, 
 and of whose proficiency in the arts of blasphemy 
 you yourself may yet become ashamed, we beg you 
 not to swear. Do not teach them such words as, if 
 not repented of, the recording angel will re-produce 
 as testimony sufficient, not only to debar them forever 
 from the glory and bliss of heaven but, as well, to 
 imprison them forever in that fearful place the very 
 
284 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 name of which — "hell" — is enough to create a 
 shudder. 
 
 But again we appeal to you to stop this vile habit, 
 because it is an abuse of the divine gift of speech. 
 In endowing man with reason, his Maker conferred 
 on him a faculty which would have occasioned him 
 more wretchedness than happiness, more pain than 
 pleasure, if He had not coupled it with the power 
 of speech. In this event human ingenuity would 
 probably have originated systems of signs, some- 
 what like such as are used by deaf-mutes, complete 
 enough to subserve the ordinary purposes of human 
 fellowships and associations. But, to say nothing 
 of its awkardness, the great inconvenience of such 
 an artificial medium of inter-communication would 
 have been felt in a thousand ways. 
 
 Besides this, what an immense amount of happi- 
 ness man would not have known, if he had been 
 originally created with all the wonderful endow- 
 ments which justly entitle him to be called the 
 prince of creation, excepting the gift of speech. 
 Indispensable, as the conditions under which we 
 live prove it to be, and so largely contributive to our 
 happiness as it is, yet there are frequent instances 
 in which it seems to be inadequate to the purpose 
 of communicating all the ideas and impressions of 
 the thinking soul. To many persons who have not 
 cultivated the power of language so as to be able to 
 express their thoughts freely and clearly, the very 
 
AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 285 
 
 effort to do this often becomes vexatious — a fault 
 which, of course, is to be charged more on their 
 own neglect of the means of education than on the 
 gift itself of speech. There are others, however 
 — even men of cultivated minds — who often find it 
 a difficult thing to clothe the thought that struggles 
 within them for utterance with suitable spoken or 
 written words. Their lexicons are large, but incom- 
 plete ; the words which might so accurately repro- 
 duce their burning impressions and ideas as to warm 
 other appreciative minds into a glow of admiration, 
 have not yet been invented, and spelled out in their 
 columns. In respect, too, of true religious feeling, 
 there are experiences which, like St. Paul's,* are 
 not speakable. There is a depth of devotional sen- 
 timent at times in the true child of God that has no 
 soundings. Only the eye that compasses the uni- 
 verse can fathom it. The silence of the soul, in 
 this condition, is at once its only and most befitting 
 expression— words would but disturb without re- 
 vealing such depths. The calm, quiet enthusiasm 
 of a Christian mind, lost in meditation on the num- 
 ber, magnitude, and variety of the divine blessings, 
 is an unspeakable experience. Unused to the con- 
 ventional phraseology of mere wordy professors — 
 shrinking, indeed, from the mere cant of such devo- 
 tion as is demonstrative only in the ratio of its ig- 
 norance — such a one if asked to express orally, or 
 
 2 Cor. xii. 2-4. 
 
28 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 audibly, what he feels, might fitly respond, in ef- 
 fect — 
 
 "Fountain of mercy! whose all-pervading eye 
 Can look within and read what passes there, 
 Accept my thoughts for thanks; I have no words. 
 My soul, o'erfraught with gratitude, rejects 
 The aid of langauge. Lord! behold my heart!" 
 
 The gift of speech, then, dear reader, is a study 
 — a profound study. If we could but offer you such 
 hints and suggestions touching it as would prompt 
 you to inquire into its value, more at length than 
 the limited space of this page allows us to do, we 
 have no doubt but that you would not proceed far 
 in your inquiries, before you would concede with us, 
 even though the confession convicted yourself of 
 guiltiness, that of all the abuses to which men sub- 
 mit their inestimable talent of speech, there is none 
 at once so irrational and ungrateful as swearing. 
 The single consideration that they are distinguish- 
 able from each other as being wise or foolish, not 
 much less markedly than from the brute creation, by 
 the use of the tongue, should be sufficient to guard 
 them against the indulgence of this vice, unless they 
 prefer to be known, not as being wise, but foolish. 
 
 It is an affliction that must be exquisitely painful, 
 to be deprived of one's power of speech, and not, at 
 the same time, of rationality. To a good man it 
 must be worse than death. As he lay upon his 
 couch gradually growing weaker, through physical 
 
AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 287 
 
 inability to take nourishment, occasioned by paraly- 
 sis of the tongue and throat, a well-to-do friend of 
 the writer, having just strength enough left to do so, 
 wrote, in substance, on a slate that was put under 
 his hand, "I'm starving to death in the midst of 
 plenty — I'm so hungry ; but it will soon be over — it 
 will soon be over!" Nor can we ever forget a ven- 
 erable German woman — a Christian grandmother, 
 w T ho, having been stricken with paralysis, had lost 
 the use of her right arm and of the power of speech. 
 Day after day, as she sat in her chair, or feebly at- 
 tempted to move about, in order to a little relief, 
 strange as it seemed, there were two words only 
 which, in the efforts she made to communicate with 
 others, she could distinctly utter. Time and again 
 as we talked to her in a Christian tone, and tried to 
 understand the responses of her interesting, intelli- 
 gent countenance, it was touching in the extreme, to 
 see her lift her left hand, and hear her speak, at the 
 same moment, the only two words that were left her, 
 u ach Gott! ach Groti!" This only phrase that 
 she could articulate — "Oh, God! Oh, God!" — ex- 
 pressed a volume of meaning. In it were summed 
 up all the hopes and aspirations of her long previous 
 Christian life, and all the longings of her now help- 
 less old age, for rest in Him whose name she had 
 ever found to be " a strong tower; the righteous 
 runneth into it, and is safe."* 
 
 * Prov. xviii. 10. 
 
288 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 We pray, swearer, that your tongue may never 
 be withered by this fell disease, paralysis ! Stricken 
 dumb suddenly and unexpectedly, yours certainly 
 could not be such a hopeful religious experience as 
 is above described. The oaths and blasphemies of 
 your previous life, recurring to your memory in 
 fearful array, it would constitute not the least part 
 of the affliction to know that you had lost the ines- 
 timable power or incalculable privilege of speech, so 
 far as not to be able to stammer out even the peni- 
 tent's prayer, u God be merciful to me, the sinner!" 
 
 Bat we appeal to you again to repent of this ag- 
 gravating sin, on the ground of your accountability 
 to your Maker. The records of your past life are 
 imperishable. Only time passes away; what is 
 said and done by you and me remains — much of it 
 in our own, and all in our Maker's remembrance. 
 Nothing that one thinks, or says, or does, within the 
 circle of his present life, whether its radius extends 
 to the shore-line of a continent or but a few rods 
 from an obscure door-sill, can be absolutely forgot- 
 ten — so sunk in the deep of oblivion that it shall 
 never come to the surface. A fact this — a naked, 
 unadorned fact, w T hich many witnesses, persons who 
 have been almost drowned but have been resusci- 
 tated, could corroborate, if not demonstrate. With 
 nervous agitation, blanched cheek and quivering 
 lips, they have declared that at a certain moment in 
 their experience of drowning — at the instant, per- 
 
AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 289 
 
 haps, when it was to be determined whether they 
 should slip off into eternity or remain a little longer 
 in time — everything they ever said or did, appeared 
 to them with startling distinctness — things, indeed, 
 they had not remembered since they occurred years 
 previously. How forcibly this phenomenon sug- 
 gests the minute review, in which shall pass before 
 him, when he comes to stand at the bar of the last 
 judgment, all the acts of one's present life ! 
 
 Certain recent discoveries of science, if they do 
 not illustrate, yet make more credible, the revealed 
 truth of our human accountability. If man's in- 
 genuity can devise an instrument by which his 
 words may be heard by invisible listeners many tor- 
 tuous leagues distant, is it a mere figment of theo- 
 logy that his mighty Maker, invisible yet so near 
 him always that he can never leave His presence, is 
 always, too, one of his most interested hearers ? If, 
 furthermore, he can invent a machine that shall 
 record his words — indeed, even his merest whispers 
 — record accurately the very inflections, emphases, 
 and accents with which they are uttered, so that at 
 any moment in future years, if he curiously put his 
 finger on some simple spring, those same loud or whis- 
 pered words, whether of wit or wisdom, of laughter or 
 sorrow, of anger or love, of prayer or profanity, shall 
 be distinctly re-produced to his startled ears ; — if 
 man can do this by the genius, almost creative, with 
 which his Maker has endowed him, is it incredible 
 13 
 
290 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 that his Maker Himself has means, though He has 
 not seen fit to reveal them to us, by which He shall 
 re-produce to our memory, on the great last day of 
 judgment, all the acts as well as words which com- 
 pose the history of our present life ? Now that 
 man himself by the merest mechanical means can 
 perpetuate, not simply the memory of but the very 
 words themselves which he utters, and not only the 
 bare, naked words but, in the suspended vocal tones 
 accompanying them, the very spirit or motive that 
 actuated them, to doubt that a divine record can be, 
 and is being made of what he says and does, is to 
 shut one's eyes against a truth which, in its further 
 inquiries into the arcana of the physical world, 
 science itself may yet help us to believe without any 
 misgiving whatever. Christ's solemn protest is not 
 unphilosophical, " But I say unto you, that every 
 idle word that men shall speak, they shall give ac- 
 count thereof in the day of judgment."* 
 
 "What wilt thou say when He shall punish 
 thee,"f swearer, for all the oaths and blasphemies 
 of thy whole life-time ? If you should die impeni- 
 tently, which w T e pray Grod may not be your expe- 
 rience, how exquisite the pangs of conscience that 
 shall be occasioned by the recurrence to your 
 thought, in eternity, of all the curses, imprecations, 
 and indecent language to which you gave utterance 
 
 *Matt. xii. 36. 
 I Jer. xiii. 21. 
 
AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 291 
 
 while passing through forty, or sixty, or, it may be, 
 seventy years of infinitely-precious life here on 
 earth! Where "hell" is and what it is, we do not 
 know. We only know that it is, somewhere beyond 
 the verge of time, and, in general terms, that it is 
 misery and wretchedness wherever the lost spirit 
 shall realize it. And let that "hell" be where it 
 may, there will be no need there of material fire to 
 torture the lost soul. Carrying with it into eternity 
 all its power of thought and memory, it shall find 
 within itself "hell" enough to punish itself for the 
 guilt it contracted prior to its advent thither. What 
 John Randolph is said to have felt in his last sick- 
 ness would constitute a sufficient "hell" for the 
 rational, thinking soul to endure; and certainly so, 
 if it is to last forever ! It is related that he said to 
 his physician, "Remorse, Remorse, Remorse!! 
 Let me see the word ! Show it to me in a diction- 
 ary!" As none was conveniently near, he said to 
 the doctor: "Write it, then — write it on both sides 
 of a card, and underline it!" Holding it up before 
 him, and gazing upon it intently, he bitterly ex- 
 claimed: "Remorse! — you don't know what it 
 means! you don't know what it means!" God for- 
 bid, swearer, that you should ever realize " what it 
 means." 
 
 But we still further entreat you to quit this fear- 
 ful vice because of its hardening effect upon the 
 conscience or moral sense. Have you ever noticed 
 
292 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 that swearers, as a rule, are not church-goers ? We 
 do not mean to imply that every church-goer is not 
 a swearer. On several former pages we have can- 
 didly admitted, and lamented, and called the atten- 
 tion of the reader to the sad fact that there are even 
 avowed Christians w T ho indulge this low vice. But 
 we merely state what has often been observed as 
 well by others as by ourself, that swearers, as a 
 class, are not in the habit of attending church. 
 The hallowed place where He is worshipped from 
 time to time, has no attractions for him who, having 
 cast off all fear of God, daily profanes His holy 
 name. 
 
 Again: have you ever observed that swearers do 
 not pray ? And yet they do pray ; that is, they 
 send heavenward, time and again, fearfully-worded 
 petitions, that the Almighty should — not bless them- 
 selves and others, as tenderly and graciously as 
 Pope's touching stanza suggests — 
 
 ' 'Teach me to feel another's woe, 
 To hide the faults I see ; 
 That mercy I to others show 
 That mercy show to me," — 
 
 but curse — actually curse either themselves or 
 others. Aye, they do pray; but such prayers! 
 Savoring so largely as they do, of the region 
 poetically described in Scripture as being overcast 
 with "the blackness of darkness forever," they 
 may, therefore, appropriately be termed infernal. 
 
AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 293 
 
 But let us state the question in another form ; — 
 have you ever seen a swearer down upon his knees, 
 at his bed-side or in his own family circle, and heard 
 him softly whisper, " Our Father who art in heaven, 
 Hallmved be thy Name" and so on, till he ended 
 the interesting service of devotion w r ith the doxology , 
 " For thine is * * * * * * the glory, forever. 
 Amen ? " Have you ever seen the blatant swearer 
 in the midst of a congregation of worshippers, rever- 
 ently waiting to be dismissed, and, the while, hum- 
 bly bending as if in grateful recognition and 
 acknowledgment of the precious truth voiced in the 
 benediction — " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 be with you all. Amen?" In response to such 
 queries perhaps we should not here w T rite "never." 
 Now and then there may be an exception ; occasion- 
 ally the bold blasphemer may be seen in church ; but 
 the rule is, that he neither goes to church, nor 
 prays, nor habitually observes any other distinctively 
 religious duty. 
 
 The indifference to religion on the part of men in 
 general, or their evident dislike of religious duty, is 
 explained by St. Paul on the broad ground that 
 " the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is 
 not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can 
 be."* While we assent to this general statement 
 without a doubt of its truthfulness, yet it is, too, 
 
 * Rom. viii. 7. 
 
294 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 our honest conviction — a conviction forced upon us, 
 indeed, by long observation of its sad effects upon 
 the confirmed swearer — that of all the particular 
 sins or immoralities to which man thoughtlessly gives 
 himself, there is none that tends sooner and more 
 effectually to destroy whatever religious sentiment 
 may inhere in his human nature, to sear his con- 
 science as with a hot iron, and to bring the soul into 
 the fearful condition which the Apostle so graphi- 
 cally pictures in but two w T ords — u past feeling" — 
 than the sin of profanity. 
 
 Do you remember, swearer, your first oath? 
 How ashamed you w r ere of yourself! How it 
 startled you to hear the sound of your own profan- 
 ity ! You looked around, perhaps, to see if any 
 other than the party at whom you swore had heard 
 you. A moment after, and you resolved, perhaps, 
 that you would never do it again. And you kept 
 your engagement w T ith yourself for a considerable 
 period, it may be. But you broke it, on another 
 occasion ; and then a third time you swore, and a 
 fourth, and thenceforth every repetition of the sin 
 made it less and less enormous to your conscience. 
 
 It is in just this way that bad habits are formed. 
 Everything we do repeatedly reacts in its effect upon 
 the mind ; it strengthens the disposition to do that 
 thing, whatever it may be, till it acquires at last the 
 force and energy of what is sometimes called a 
 " second nature." A man doing wrong once is 
 
AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 295 
 
 hereby prepared to clo it twice, and much easier can 
 he do it the third time. In direct opposition to his 
 conviction of their guiltiness, and with hut little 
 temptation to encourage him, by simply repeating 
 his indulgences he may become so addicted, not to 
 one only, but, indeed, to all human vices, that his 
 life shall become an almost hopeless state of serf- 
 dom to many masters — a serfdom the more deplor- 
 able in that it is voluntary. Then it is that he 
 fears no more the alarms of conscience. His con- 
 dition is somewhat like that of the smith's dog lying 
 near his anvil ; at first the fiery sparks frightened 
 him away, but coaxed from time to time to remain, 
 at length he not only unconcernedly faces the fire, 
 but he even lies down under the anvil and sleeps, 
 in spite of ringing blows sounding in his ears, and 
 rush of hissing sparks over and about him in every 
 direction. As such an utterly inanimate spiritual 
 state is an earnest, as sad as it is certain, of a still 
 worse future state of the soul, we plead with you, 
 swearer ! to guard against it by having nothing to 
 do with the sin that most directly and certainly con- 
 tributes to it. 
 
 But last of all, though it ought to have been, per- 
 haps, our first plea, we appeal to you to quit it, be- 
 cause God forbids it. None of His commands is 
 unnecessary or superfluous. He does not thrust 
 law T s and obligations upon us from the mere love of 
 exercising authority. He never forbids this, or 
 
296 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY, 
 
 commands that, simply because He is God and we — 
 His helpless creatures — are unable successfully to 
 argue down, or otherwise set aside His claims upon 
 our obedience. He is not a tyrant. He is not an 
 autocrat, using infinite means to command obedience 
 to an arbitrary will, or to subserve an infinitely 
 selfish purpose. No; no — a thousand times no! 
 He is a Father — " Our Father" — yours and mine. 
 Repeating the common-place which you have heard 
 so often, that He loves you, and, too, with an in- 
 finite love, w T e wish that we had the space here so 
 to re-produce the oft-reiterated evidences of that 
 precious truth, that they could not fail of deeply 
 impressing you. He loves you, swearer ; therefore 
 He forbids you to sin against Him. He could an- 
 swer your imprecations instantly ; but He loves you, 
 swearer, and, hence, He withholds His wrath. He 
 will not " damn" you, if you yourself will but con 
 sent to be saved. 
 
 Independent of all other considerations, it should 
 be reason enough for you to quit the habit of swear- 
 ing that, "Thus saith the Lord." He is the 
 Sovereign, and we are the subjects. He is the 
 Father, and we are the children. The most willing 
 and unhesitating obedience, therefore, is due to Him 
 whom we have been exalting on every page of this 
 book, and who from His throne of thrones and in 
 every age of his history has been thundering in the 
 ears of man this solemn commandment: "THOU 
 
AN APPEAL TO THE PROFANE. 297 
 
 SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE 
 LORD THY GOD IN VAIN ; FOR THE LORD 
 WILL NOT HOLD HIM GUILTLESS THAT 
 TAKETII HIS NAME IN VAIN." 
 
 And now reader, let us part company. But not 
 without His blessing whose name we have magni- 
 fied, as demanding our deepest veneration. Our 
 labor is rewarded and our end attained, if, by read- 
 ing this discussion of the sin of profanity, you have 
 become as thoroughly convinced of its malignity as 
 is the writer, and are equally moved with him to 
 u give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name." 
 Our reverence for Him should be as deep as was 
 Isaiah's; and for the same reason, " Lord, thou 
 art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy 
 name."* 
 
 "0 magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt 
 his name together."! 
 
 " To Jehovah, God of might, 
 Everlasting, infinite, 
 Dwelling in His boundless heaven, 
 Be eternal glory given ! 
 His the power, the love, the light, 
 His the day and His the night, 
 His tne happy bine on high, 
 Earth's green round of spring and joy. 
 
 * Isa. xxv . i. 
 f Psa. xxxiv, 3. 
 18* 
 
298 THE FOLLY OF PROFANITY. 
 
 " Let us, then, our honor bring 
 To this mighty Lord and King, 
 Let a new and ceaseless song 
 Break from every heart and tongue. 
 Praise Him as the God of might, 
 Praise Him as the Lord of light. 
 To His name our song we raise, 
 Father, Son, and Spirit praise."* 
 
 * Horatius Bonar. 
 
INDEX OF TOPICS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Accessory to others' sins, who is 248 
 
 Accomplishment, appropriateness of speech an . . . 89 
 " gentility, not a mere exterior ... 88 
 
 " profanity, not a female 99 
 
 Accountability, human 288 
 
 " " science corroborating the. . .289 
 
 "Ach Gott!" 287 
 
 Adam versus Eve 165 
 
 Addresses of a swearer, young women encouraging the 258 
 Administering "judicial oaths," reprehensible man- 
 ner of 226 
 
 Advice, George Herbert's quaint 86 
 
 " Francis Quarle's quaint . ... 129 
 
 Aged swearer, the 83 
 
 "Amm" 239 
 
 American Indians guiltless of profanity 58 
 
 Ambition of " Festus" the highest 188 
 
 Amusement, profanity not an 246 
 
 Anger, the folly of. 149 
 
 " the issues of ungoverned 150 
 
 " self-consuming 151 
 
 " swearing in 147 
 
 Angels, the worship of. 176 
 
 Anglo-Saxon tongue, profanity not peculiar to the . . 51 
 Answered imprecations, illustrations of supposed. . . 65 
 
 Anti-swearing society 270 
 
 Archer, the Cretan . 269 
 
 Art, the, of swearing among various peoples 52 
 
 Artists, the, essays on Guilt and Innocence 72 
 
 ( 299 ) 
 
300 INDEX OF TOPICS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Artists, a trio of 89 
 
 Ashamed of themselves, what Christians should be . 246 
 
 Asleep, conscience 295 
 
 Atheism, Jeremy Taylor on 198 
 
 u Robespierre on 215 
 
 " Coleridge on 199 
 
 " Dr. Young on 170 
 
 " and infidelity not the legitimate issue of rea- 
 son and knowledge 210 
 
 Atheists, the non-belief of, astonishing 199 
 
 " the most profane of the profane 198 
 
 " and infidels, why men are 213 
 
 Authority should be used to interdict profanity. . . .256 
 
 Badge, the, of gentility 88 
 
 " Beast," the blasphemous, in Rev. xiii, 5-6 238 
 
 Beelzebub and his imps . . . 83 
 
 Belief, accountability for our 205 
 
 Belies himself, how the swearer often , . . 147 
 
 Blasphemer, the, in Lev. xxiv, 10-23 178 
 
 Blasphemous, a, expression 208 
 
 Blunderingly, doing good 246 
 
 "Bottle, pot, and glass" 121 
 
 Bowring, Sir John, on The Infinite 102 
 
 Boyle's, Hon. Robert, reverence for the name of God . 177 
 
 Breakfast-table, scene at a 47 
 
 Brute, the cursed « . . . . 66 
 
 Bunyan, John, rebuked for his profanity 250 
 
 Business man's, a, short argument 130 
 
 "Business Men's Noon-Day Prayer-meeting " . . . . 270 
 
 "By" anything, swearing 232 
 
 " profanity without the particle 233 
 
 "Cannot quit it " 146 
 
 Cannibalism 39 
 
 Capital offence, blasphemy once a 179 
 
INDEX OF TOPICS. 301 
 
 FAGE 
 
 Caste, social, no criterion of gentility 90 
 
 Challenge, a . . 138 
 
 Cheap work , 82 
 
 Child's, a, reproof 282 
 
 Children, profanity of 36 
 
 Christian Fathers, the, on swearing 226 
 
 Church members, irreligious , 21 
 
 Class distinctions, the English tenacious of 94 
 
 Classes, swearing more or less common to all . . . . 20 
 
 Clerical swearers 21 
 
 Coachman, the clergyman and the 253 
 
 Comment, a caustic, by the secular press 210 
 
 Commercial use, swearing of no 75 
 
 Confession, a humiliating 57 
 
 Congressional swearers 29 
 
 Conscience, a seared . 295 
 
 Conqueror, a, conquered 218 
 
 Constitutional vice, swearing not a 142 
 
 Conversation, swearing not important to 109 
 
 " minor faults of 135 
 
 " a key to character 105 
 
 Conversationalist, a novel 117 
 
 Correct the vice, the duty of Christians to 245 
 
 Courage, true 115 
 
 " the profane lack in 113 
 
 Cowper on profanity 50 
 
 Cursing, mutual 66 
 
 Custom, an Indian 38 
 
 Cuyler, Dr. Theo., on swearing 85 
 
 Crime, the first 149 
 
 " trifling with 148 
 
 " the prevalence of, not wonderful .213 
 
 " the New York Evening Post on the cause of . . 214 
 
 Criminal, how a "gentleman" becomes a 99 
 
 si practice, a 38 
 
302 INDEX OF TOPICS. 
 
 PAGt? 
 
 Delicacy of feeling, false 249 
 
 " " " rebuked by a king 250 
 
 Devils answered, the prayer of 68 
 
 Dilemma, a 127 
 
 Discipline, the, of a ship 259 
 
 " church 23 
 
 Dignity of manhood not improved by profanity ... 73 
 
 Disfigures himself, how the swearer 70 
 
 Dislike of religion, St. Paul's explanation of men's . 211 
 
 " Does it pay?" 75 
 
 " Do thyself no harm" 276 
 
 Dolls, wooden 155 
 
 Drought, graphic description of a 240 
 
 Drunkenness often an inherited vice 143 
 
 Dwight, Rev. Tim., on profaneness 83 
 
 Early impressions inextinguishable 37 
 
 Edward's, Rev. Jon., opinion of profaneness 81 
 
 Effects, enervating " " " 112 
 
 Eloquence deplored, results of infidel 207 
 
 Emperor, an, rebuked 55 
 
 Empty head, swearing proof of an 74 
 
 Encouraging sin dangerous 132 
 
 English profanity 44 
 
 Estimate of criminality, inconsistent 26 
 
 Example, the tuition of 280 
 
 Excuse for swearing, no reasonable . • 138 
 
 Expedients, prudent, to arrest attention 254 
 
 Expression, an eloquent Indian 59 
 
 Fact deplored, a sad 208 
 
 " stated, a remarkable 171 
 
 Fate of nations, Southey on the 244 
 
 "Father," the most endearing name of God .... 183 
 
 " God's human name 185 
 
 " the name most used by Christ 184 
 
INDEX OF TOPICS. 303 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Father's name, the swearer ill-using his 272 
 
 Faults, minor, of conversation 135 
 
 Fealty to the Devil, a tribute of 82 
 
 Festus, moral cowardice illustrated in 116 
 
 Fire, swearing the smoke of a 152 
 
 Folly, the swearer admitting his 153 
 
 Foreman, or "boss," swearing of no use to a . . . . 77 
 
 Forms, modified, of swearing 228 
 
 Freedman, the unlettered 167 
 
 Galen's conversion from atheism to theism 62 
 
 Gentility within 90 
 
 Gentleman, no, swears 87 
 
 " the name of, easily arrogated 105 
 
 Germans, the, not a profane people 54 
 
 God ! 191 
 
 the idea of, inherent in man . . 204 
 
 high above terrestrial things 159 
 
 a great deep to our thought 197 
 
 how little we know of 173 
 
 an object none can safely exclude from thought . 197 
 
 to the atheist no object at all 200 
 
 what is 194 
 
 the attitude of learned atheism towards .... 201 
 
 cannot be injured by man 159 
 
 as "Our Father," "hurt" by man's wickedness . 162 
 
 His wonderful patience 160 
 
 Jean Ingelow on His longanimity 160 
 
 His goodness, His glory 96 
 
 has not divested Himself of His justice .... 274 
 
 not always mocked with impunity 240 
 
 not a tyrant 296 
 
 a sure paymaster 275 
 
 forbids the sin of profanity 296 
 
 His providential relation to the peoples of the 
 earth 242 
 
304 INDEX OF TOPICS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 God ! His resources infinite 243 
 
 " a short but awful monosyllable 1G0 
 
 " Sir John Bow ring on the word 173 
 
 God is! 172 
 
 " " man cannot be silenced, touching the truth 
 
 that 204 
 
 " " how we infer what 172 
 
 Goodness, the glory of 96 
 
 Guilt of sin not lessened by its repetition 139 
 
 Habit, the plea of 139 
 
 " " power of 141 
 
 " acting against a fixed 89 
 
 " bad, how formed 295 
 
 " Hallowed be thy name" 176 
 
 Heard, where swearing may be 18 
 
 " Heathen Chinee" theatricals 48 
 
 Hero, who is the 115 
 
 High life, profanity in 27 
 
 Hindoo devotion 39 
 
 "Home, sweet home" closed against the swearer . . 256 
 
 " ' e " polluted by " " . . 257 
 
 Honest man, the habitual swearer not an . . . . . . 129 
 
 Hopkins, Bishop, a fine thought from 194 
 
 Horse, a knowing 250 
 
 Howard, John, an incident of 131 
 
 "I don't care ; it hurts no one but myself" 277 
 
 " I don't mean anything by it " . . • 153 
 
 Inanimate things, cursing 66 
 
 Independence, moral, a fiction 187 
 
 Indian practice, an 38 
 
 " American, not naturally disposed to swear . . 58 
 
 India, not a profane country 57 
 
 " In fun," or " in earnest " • . . 68 
 
 " Innocent " sin, there is no 162 
 
INDEX OF TOPICS. 305 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Inoperative laws on common swearing 262 
 
 "Instantaneous conversion" in the court-room . . . 265 
 
 Instinctively, swearing 148 
 
 Intemperance of speech, the Word forbids . .... .233 
 
 Intent, divesting one's self of guilty 157 
 
 Inveterate vice, a slave driver 141 
 
 Idea, the, of God should ever be preserved ..... 216 
 u " difficult to keep uppermost .... 216 
 
 " " how to revivify 217 
 
 "I'll whip you till you can't stand" 281 
 
 James, St., text on swearing 225 
 
 " Jehovah," the true pronunciation of the title . . .181 
 1 ' the ancient Jews' veneration of the name. 1 77 
 
 Judah, mourning 240 
 
 Judges, profane • • 77 
 
 " Judicial oaths " forbidden 224 
 
 Key, a, to character 105 
 
 King, a, rebuked by a soldier 249 
 
 Knowledge of God, our, very little 173 
 
 Lady, no, swears 99 
 
 " Webster's definition of a 100 
 
 Latimer, incident of the martyr 126 
 
 Law-administrators, the duty of 266 
 
 Lawyer, swearing of no use to a 77 
 
 Legislative halls, offensive words in 32 
 
 Lie, a man who swears will 128 
 
 Little sins, the unlawfulness and destructiveness of . 163 
 
 London language 46 
 
 Lost, nothing, by not swearing * . 80 
 
 Lord Mayor, the wit and the 89 
 
 " Lucifer " laughing at the profane 116 
 
 Malevolence, exquisite 69 
 
306 INDEX OF TOPICS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "Man! what is" 62 
 
 " the most perfect 97 
 
 " Socrates on 62 
 
 " Erasmus on 62 
 
 " Pascal on 63 
 
 " Young on 62 
 
 " of integrity, the swearer not a 30 
 
 Manliness, Shelley on 33 
 
 Manner, Christ's, of prohibiting swearing 223 
 
 Maryland's revival of moral sense 262 
 
 Maxim, a legal 157 
 
 " a Jewish 233 
 
 " a false 80 
 
 Mean thing, the true man will clo 73 
 
 Merchant, swearing of no use to a 76 
 
 " a wise, of Edinburgh 259 
 
 Merit intrinsic versus merit extrinsic 94 
 
 Military profession, profanity in the 114 
 
 Mohammedan, the devout ; 171 
 
 Moral deformity the most lamentable of self-injuries . 70 
 
 " excellence the true criterion of rank 98 
 
 " inability 88 
 
 " integrity, purity of speech a sign of. 31 
 
 " monsters 38 
 
 " worth, the superiority of 98 
 
 Motivity, pretending to no 155 
 
 Mysteries, the mystery of 172 
 
 Name, the, of G-od, Bailey on 188 
 
 " " how it affected Alexander the 
 Great 218 
 
 Name, the, of God, how it affected a poor freedman . 167 
 " " " " a devout negro . 168 
 
 " " let it alone ! 175 
 
 " " only His enemies abuse ..... 239 
 " of infinite moment to us 186 
 
INDEX OF TOPICS. 307 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Name, the of God, mention it feverently 218 
 
 " " what it expresses to us 181 
 
 " " " the scripture-writers say of . 188 
 
 Names, soft, for swearing 24 
 
 National characteristic, swearing a 17 
 
 Necessity versus expediency 246 
 
 New Testament, the, law of profanity 223 
 
 Nobleman, who is the 74 
 
 North American Review, the, on swearing 74 
 
 Nothing need prove its right to be 199 
 
 Oath, the fearful import of an 68 
 
 " Offence, first" 140 
 
 Office, immorality a disqualification for 30 
 
 Oneida Indian's, an, gratitude 61 
 
 One's self, caring for 277 
 
 " Opinions, " Colton on , . . 269 
 
 Oriental couplet, an 95 
 
 Ornamental use, swearing of no 70 
 
 "Our Father" 161 
 
 Parlor theatricals 163 
 
 Parrot's swearing 74 
 
 Particeps criminis 248 
 
 1 ' Perfect gentlemen, ' ' have to become 95 
 
 Perjury in the present age 264 
 
 Perpetuity, a nation's best guarantee of 17 
 
 Personality, the sense of 278 
 
 Petition, a daring 96 
 
 Philosopher, the puzzled 194 
 
 Phraseology, foolish 230 
 
 " a grave objection to 232 
 
 Physician, swearing of no use to a 76 
 
 Plato knew of God, what 195 
 
 Poem, a fine, commended 189 
 
 Polish to conversation, swearing gives no . . . . . .119 
 
308 INDEX OF TOPICS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Political personages, admiration of 93 
 
 Polyglot coachman, tlie 53 
 
 Practical use, swearing of no 64 
 
 Prayer, what is , 182 
 
 " , infernal 293 
 
 Precept, an old 245 
 
 Print, profanity in 124 
 
 " Profane, " origin of the word 198 
 
 Profanity never helps anything 80 
 
 " , pulpit 181 
 
 Pulpit should do towards the extinction of the vice, 
 
 what the 267 
 
 Purity of speech a true exponent of refinement . . .104 
 
 Quaker's aim, the 268 
 
 Question, a practical 64 
 
 Rajah's, a Hindoo, opinion of the English 48 
 
 Kecipe for a gentleman, St. Paul's 97 
 
 Remorse is " hell " ' 291 
 
 Repentance magnifying guilt 165 
 
 Revelation of God, a full, unbearable 196 
 
 Ridicule no test of truth 80 
 
 Shadow, a dark 211 
 
 Shamelessness, the, of the swearer .40 
 
 Ship-owner, the, and the pious sailor 251 
 
 Shop, the, who should dictate the rules of 260 
 
 Signs of an awakened sense of the crime of swearing. 270 
 
 Sinai, Mt., God's voice from 220 
 
 Singular, a, thing touching the name of "God " . . . 171 
 
 Sin, the dangerous siege of 141 
 
 " the danger of encouraging 133 
 
 " how, troubles us 174 
 
 " repentance offers no excuse for 164 
 
 " the, of not rebuking 248 
 
 Sinners, some, to be pitied more than others 142 
 
INDEX OF TOPICS. 309 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Slave, tlie pious 168 
 
 Society endangered, the well-being of. 207 
 
 Soldier, the demented 145 
 
 Solomon on the foolish swearer 238 
 
 Speech, the divine gift of 284 
 
 " should be, what our daily 236 
 
 " a great affliction to be deprived of 287 
 
 " a study 286 
 
 Sprig, a, of gentility rebuked 107 
 
 Starving to death 287 
 
 Steal, a man who swears will 130 
 
 Stranger, a, from another planet 208 
 
 Stultifying himself, the swearer 158 
 
 Suicide, constructive 152 
 
 Sumner, Senator, on Lord Brougham's profanity ... 47 
 
 Sunday School Times, the, on profanity 74 
 
 Supposition, a startling 65 
 
 Swearing, no sin more inexcusable than .166 
 
 " tends to harden conscience more than other 294 
 
 Swearer, the, has no right to injure himself 276 
 
 " the, should quit his vice for others' sake . . 279 
 
 " his own children often rival him 280 
 
 " his prayers 293 
 
 " his first oath • 294 
 
 Tableau, a Persian 51 
 
 Talker, the good, how, regards an oath 118 
 
 Temperance pledges, amended 271 
 
 Terms, what, are essentially oaths , . 232 
 
 "There, stop there" 63 
 
 "Thou" and "thee," the scriptural terms 235 
 
 Thought sometimes inexpressible 285 
 
 Throne of God, shadows about the . . . • 196 
 
 Tidal wave, a, of infidelity 206 
 
 Tonic-like, nothing, in profanity Ill 
 
 Tourist, the accomplished 119 
 
310 INDEX OF TOPICS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Turks, Algerine, not originally profane 58 
 
 Under oath, the common swearer 266 
 
 Universal praise, a call to 219 
 
 Usurpation, a case of 92 
 
 Veneration of God not superstition 168 
 
 Veracity, profanity never strengthens 126 
 
 Veto of profanity, Christ's 223 
 
 Vice, the tyranny of 141 
 
 " " close relation of each, to every other . . . .131 
 
 1 ' Christians too cowardly towards 245 
 
 Viper, a poisonous 283 
 
 Voice, a, from the past 242 
 
 Vulgar, the, profanity always the vice of 90 
 
 Washington's aversion to profanity 260 
 
 " military order on profanity 261 
 
 Wit, the brilliant 89 
 
 " profanity not excused by a spirit of 80 
 
 " sometimes a two-edged sword ; 247 
 
 Woman, the religious nature of 101 
 
 " never injured the Saviour 102 
 
 " swearing more degrading to, than to man . 101 
 
 " an appropriate sentiment for 102 
 
 Words, the medium of life Ill 
 
 " lost forever 125 
 
 " the reactive effects of 134 
 
 Work, cheap 82 
 
 World, this self-recording 71 
 
 Wren's, Sir Christopher, pastor 259 
 
 "Yea" and "nay," the Friend's 234 
 
 Young, John, on primitive faith in God 169 
 
 Youth, the effects of profanity on 112 
 
 " warned against irreverent speech 133 
 
 Ziethen, Gen. incident of 55 
 
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