CHAPTER IV. Be Choice of Language

BE CHOICE OF LANGUAGE

Few things are more important and far-reaching than the use of words. If good, they

—“have power to ’suage The tumults of a troubled mind And are as balm to fester’d wounds.”

If bad, they corrupt and may flourish, as Carlyle said: “Like a hemlock forest after a thousand years.”

“Immodest words admit of no defence, For want of decency is want of sense.”

One of the most historic structures in the world was the Campanile, or the bell-tower of St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice. Not long since it fell. One aged Lugui Vendrasco knew its danger. For ten years he had not ceased to beg the government to allow him to put the Campanile in better order. But his warnings were unheeded. One Sunday morning he took his son to see it. As the young man looked upon the crack he said, “That’s nothing. A small crack like that can really do no harm to such a building.” Replying, the father said, “Son, it is not the crack. It is that of which the crack is the effect and symbol. Our Campanile is doomed.” The next morning it fell with an awful crash. In like manner many a man has come tumbling down. His character was not safe because of some flaw in it. Improper words prove its great defect as the crack did the weakness of the Campanile.

Stephen Price, once Mayor of New York, and a warm friend to boys, lost his life in a steamboat disaster. When his body was recovered, a scrap of paper was found in his pocket-book. It was so worn with oft reading that the words were scarcely legible, but two paragraphs were finally made out, one of which was: “Good company and good conversation are the very sinews of virtue.” In fact, these are inseparable. Conversation is a reflex of character, and no boy can associate with another who delights in slangy, smutty talk without being more or less contaminated.

IMPROPER WORDS.

A very common and bad habit of some boys is the attachment of improper words to a sentence, as if it made it more binding. These in no sense give grace or beauty to language. They do not round out a period or enrich a metaphor. They define nothing, bound nothing, measure nothing, mean nothing, accomplish nothing, and he who uses them should be shunned. Vulgar expressions are never in order. “They help,” as South says, “no one’s education or manners. They are disgusting to the refined, abominable to the good, insulting to those with whom one associates, degrading to the mind, unprofitable, needless and injurious to society,” and beneath the dignity of any self-respecting person. “Are there any ladies around?” said a young officer to a group of others, “I’ve a splendid story to tell.” “There are no ladies present,” said General Ulysses S. Grant, who overheard the remark, “but there are gentlemen here, sir, and what is not fit for a lady to hear, is unfit for a gentleman.”

When Coleridge Patterson, the martyred bishop of Melanesia, was a boy at Eton, he was enthusiastically fond of cricket, at which he was an unusually good player. At the cricket suppers at Eton, it was the custom to give toasts followed by songs, and these songs were often of a very questionable sort. Before one of these suppers, “Coley” told the captain that he would protest against the introduction of anything that was vulgar or indecent. His protest apparently had no effect, for during the evening, one of the boys arose and began to sing a song which “Coley” thought was not fit for decent boys to hear. Whereupon, rising from his seat, he said, “If this sort of thing continues, I shall leave the room.” It was continued and he left. The next day he wrote to the captain of the eleven, saying unless he received an apology, he should withdraw from the club. The apology was sent and Patterson remained. By that stand he showed his character, which won the admiration of the rest and brought about a new state of affairs. No boy need answer another who addresses him in unbecoming language. He might say as Stephen A. Douglas, when denounced in the Senate in improper language, “What no gentleman should say, no gentleman need answer.” And as to keeping the company of anyone who is inclined to be vulgar, there is no law to compel it. Far better be a Coleridge Patterson in shunning such company.

AVOID PROFANITY.

The true gentlemanly boy has a sense of honor, scrupulously avoiding profane words as he would profane actions. No habit is more unbecoming, useless and contagious than swearing. It is the fool’s impulse and the coward’s fortification. It neither helps one’s manners nor education, and no boy with the least personal pride will be guilty of indulging in it. Louis IX of France punished everyone who was convicted of swearing by searing his lips with a hot iron.

George Washington made the following law August 3, 1776, which he caused to be read to the men under his command: “The general is sorry to be informed that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing, a vice heretofore little known in an American army, is growing into fashion; he hopes the officers will, by example as well as influence, endeavor to check it, and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have but little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our armies if we insult Him by our impiety and folly; added to this, it is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense and character detests and despises it.”

Years ago the Hon. John Finch visited an asylum in the East and asked to see a certain professional gentleman committed there. He had been a good and true man, but by overwork, physical and mental, had wrecked himself and become a raving maniac. The superintendent of the asylum said, “You will not want to see him again, he swears so.” As they entered the room in which the man was locked in a “straight jacket,” the most vulgar oaths came from his lips. Touching the superintendent Mr. Finch said, “What can this mean? When I knew that man he was one of the grandest Christians, true, noble and good in every respect; and now to hear such vile language coming from him surprises me.” The superintendent said, “He learned to swear when a boy. The impressions made on his brain at that period of life when the brain most readily receives impressions now become the governing ones. In this asylum we can almost uniformly tell what have been the habits, customs and abuses of insane people when they were children. The brain at such times receives impressions readily, the impressions are permanent, and if they have indulged in vile practices, or used bad language, the dethronement of reason and intelligent conscience will give to early impressions and habits the control of the mind.” This being true, how careful every boy should be, for who wants the bad habits of youth noticeable in age?

AVOID BLASPHEMY.

There are many ways in which language may be improperly used, but none more unbecoming and attended with more serious consequences than blasphemy, or using the name of God or Christ with disrespect. It is a presumptuous sin against which God has declared: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” declaring with emphasis, “for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.”

Sometimes, as Jacob Knapp said in his autobiography, “God steps aside from His ordinary course and smites presumptuous sinners dead, that they may stand as beacon lights to warn others to shun the rocks on which they struck.” During the Black Hawk war, in Illinois, at the time when God sent the cholera among the people, an officer cursed God for sending the disease into their midst. With an awful oath he opened his mouth, and God smote him down even as the word trembled on his lips. Such cases are rare, yet the words, “will not hold him guiltless,” show that He forgets not and that sometime He will hold the blasphemer accountable.

Howard, the philanthropist, on hearing anyone use blasphemous expressions, always buttoned up his coat. Being asked the reason, he replied, “I always do this when I hear men swear, as I think that anyone who can take God’s name in vain can also steal.” Nothing so chills one’s blood as—

—“to hear the blest Supreme Rudely appealed to on each trifling theme; Therefore maintain your rank, vulgarity despise, To blaspheme is neither brave, polite nor wise. You would not do so upon the bed of death; Reflect! Your Maker now could stop your breath.”

“AMEN!”

Many years ago when the Duke of Gordon was spending the day in a Scotch village a company of soldiers was drawn up under the window of the room in which the duke and a party of friends were enjoying themselves. The officer in command was inspecting his men’s arms and clothes, and if anything displeased him he berated the soldier with blasphemous oaths. The duke, who abhorred such language, expressed a wish that the inspection might soon be over. “If your Grace desires it,” said one of the company, “I will clear the coast of this man of oaths without noise or bloodshed.” “Do so, and I’ll be obliged to you,” said the duke. The gentleman stepped into the street, took his station behind the officer and pulled off his hat. As the officer swore, the gentleman, with the grave solemnity of a parish clerk, said in a loud voice “Amen.” “What do you mean?” asked the officer, hastily turning around. “I am joining with you in prayer,” answered the gentleman with a grave face. “I thank you, sir,” rejoined the officer, “but I have no further need for a clerk. Soldiers! to the right-about, march!” And he and his soldiers departed, much to the amusement and happiness of the duke, after teaching an important lesson to the officer that it is wrong to call upon God to do this or that, or to belittle others by vile epithets which never fail to bring in due time just retribution.

My boy, the only language to use is the pure and refined. By-words, slang phrases, profanity and blasphemy are only uttered by lips whose heart is bad, for “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” Let your tongue utter sound sentences, choice words and pleasant expressions, then will they be musical to the ears of the good, sweet to the soul of the pious, educational to those who associate with you, and beneficial to all. From this day put into practice the last words of the eloquent John B. Gough. He was lecturing in the Presbyterian Church, Frankford, Pa., on the night of February 19, 1886. In the course of that lecture he said: “I have seven years in the record of my own life when I was held in the iron grasp of intemperance. I would give the world to blot it out, but alas! I cannot.” Then, stepping forward, with an impressive gesture, he added, “Young man, keep your record—” but he was unable to finish the sentence, for he sank insensible into a chair from which he was never able to rise. Evidently he meant to say, “Young man, keep your record clean.”

Do not forget that improper words have a reflex influence. A fable is told how a bee took an offering of honey to Jupiter, which so pleased him that he promised to grant the bee whatever it should ask. The bee said, “O glorious Jove, give thy servant a sting, that when anyone approaches my hive to take the honey, I may kill him on the spot.” Jupiter answered, “Your prayer shall not be granted in the way you wish, but the sting you ask for, you shall have; and when anyone comes to take away your honey, and you sting him, the wound shall be fatal, not to him, but to you, for your life shall go with the sting.” So is it to this day. He that curseth others, curseth himself. Therefore my boy, control your tongue, and keep the door of your lips, remembering:

“’Tis reason’s part To govern and to guard the heart, To lull the wayward soul to rest, When hopes and fears distract the breast; Reason may calm this doubtful strife, And steer thy bark through various life.”