word, even in its stern passages, the injunction 'Humble yourselves' has appended to it a gracious promise; so that the paragraph which has been so searching and scathing lays firm hold of the heart at its close with 'bands of love.' 'Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord,' as in the light of His ineffable excellence you see your ignorance, and sin, and weakness, and He shall lift you up' to true though as yet imperfect knowledge, and holiness, and strength here,and yonder to the 'open vision' of the 'Altogether Lovely,' to absolute spiritual beauty, to strength that will enable you to serve Him day and night in His temple' and to bear the 'exceeding and eternal weight of glory.'

XXIII.

EVIL SPEAKING AND JUDGING.

'Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. 12 There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy who art thou that judgest another?'-JAMES IV. II, 12.

THE

HE substance of the paragraph immediately preceding these words was, that however little worldly persons may think it, yet, when we look closely into the matter, we find the spirit of worldliness to be an arrogant assumption of being independent of God, and that the only radical cure for it-the only course to be pursued by those who have been aroused to a conviction of its influence over them—is to 'submit themselves to God,' to 'humble themselves' sincerely and fully before Him. James proceeds now to give one or two illustrations of forms that worldliness often takes, and had in fact taken among many of his first readers,—showing how in these a want of reverence for God is involved, and that consequently true submission to Him will exhibit itself in a careful avoidance of such conduct.

We have first a command to abstain from detraction and calumny: 'Speak not evil one of another, brethren. You will remember that the apostle has spoken already on sins of the tongue at considerable length, in the third chapter. His exhortation here, however, is not a mere repetition of anything said there, but has a distinctive character. In the observations made in the third chapter, he had main if not exclusive reference, as is plain on a careful study, to the various vices of speech that spring out of bigotry and contention in religious

and ecclesiastical matters; the first injunction of the chapter, 'My brethren, be not many masters' ('teachers'), being a kind of key-word to the whole. Here, on the other hand, as we see, his precept forms part of an address on worldliness, and thus bears primarily on the ordinary intercourse of life-common talk on common matters. Even professedly Christian society in the apostle's days, it seems, needed the exhortation to avoid evil-speaking; and we have no reason to doubt that in every age of the church this fault has been a prevalent one: certainly our own age is not free from it.

The motives by which people are led to it are various. Definite malignity and vindictiveness sometimes, no doubt. On the ground of some real or fancied wrong done him, a man hates another; and the simplest, readiest, and most efficient way of taking revenge is to circulate a story to the other's discredit. In other cases envy is the impelling influence. A man prospers and enjoys repute among his fellows more than we do; and what the evil eye' has seen, really or in imagination, the venomous tongue tells, that this fair repute may be tarnished. There are persons in the world-probably most of us have met individuals of the kind-of so mean and wretched a spirit, that any success of others is felt by them as if it were a wrong to themselves; and thus their discourse is ever full of slander and detraction. With envy, sometimes direct self-seeking is connected. Suspicions against a man are thrown out, or a false or exaggerated story is put into circulation, in the hope that certain advantages in the way of business, for example, may thus be taken away from the object of the calumny, and come to his detractor. Cases of surrender to the influence of such motives as these, however, are rare, one may reasonably hope, among professing Christians, and even among the higher class of mere men of the world. But one motive operating often in all classes of society is vanity— the desire for a little prominence in company—which scandal is found to give most easily. It is an unhappy fact, patent enough to all who think on the subject, that the average tone of conversation among us is low. Through a want of spiri

tuality or of general intelligence, or of both, neither religious subjects nor really important secular subjects find much welcome in general social talk. They are either not introduced at all, or, if they are, the conversation soon languishes. But everything that tells against the personal character of an absent acquaintance, or that tends to exhibit him in a ridiculous light, is generally received with much favour, and felt to impart a pleasant piquancy to a conversation perhaps otherwise dull. Thus it happens, that for a man who loves a temporary prominence, and is not scrupulous in regard to his means, no way of gaining it is better suited than evil-speaking; the more particularly as there is no kind of subject on which it is so easy to seem smart as in the discussion of personal character, where, falling on the ears of listeners somewhat sympathetic, severe remarks and exaggerated sketches pass for clever, which on any other subject would be seen to be simply stupid. There can be no doubt, therefore, that vanity is a very common cause of evil-speaking. However destitute a person may be of respectable intellectual resources for shining in society, he can at least calumniate or deride his neighbour. But probably, after all, most of the ordinary calumnious gossip of society is to be ascribed to the mere desire to talk, even when all innocent materials for talk are wanting. People are brought together who seem to have no objects of common interest, or what they have are soon exhausted; still the fire of conversation must be maintained, and, as other fuel does not present itself, personal character is thrown in. This, beyond question, is the true origin of much calumnious discourse,-which yet in such a case is not the less really a sin, that there is no conscious malevolence; for there ought to be moral energy to act on the principle that silence, or innocent dulness, is immeasurably better and nobler than the propagation of what may injure, and cannot by possibility do good.

The sin of evil-speaking exhibits itself mainly in these forms: the propagation of what is known to be a calumnious lie; the exaggeration or distortion of truth; the hasty passing on of what may or may not be truth, but certainly has not been in

quired into; and the needless telling of what is known to be truth. The first of these is simply diabolical. To Satan—who, 'when he speaketh a lie, speaketh of his own, for he is a liar, and the father of it'—no work is more congenial than wilful calumny. In Eden he dared to whisper into the ear of Eve insinuations of insincerity even against God; and he has diligently tried (ah, how successfully!) to persuade her children that their Divine King has the spirit of 'an austere man, taking up that He laid not down, and reaping that He did not sow.' His hatred to man, too, has no manifestation more distinctly indicating his bitterness and his alienation from all good, than when he acts as 'the accuser of the brethren.' No characteristic of our spiritual adversary is more prominent than his love of calumny; and, indeed, his very name 'devil' means 'the calumniator.' In no way, then, can a man more distinctly prove himself a 'child of the devil,' who bears his father's image, than by inventing and propagating slanderous lies. It is difficult to suppose that any person who, by the utmost energy of self-deception, can fancy himself a Christian, could be guilty of this form of evil-speaking. But the other forms of the sin are certainly not unknown in the church of Christ : it is to be feared, indeed, that, in various degrees of heinousness, they are far from uncommon. And the debasing influence of this sin cannot be overstated. You all know (for you have all met men of the kind) the ineffable meanness of the habitual detractor. His whole moral nature is enervated, and everything like manliness and healthy tone taken away. In immediate connection with praise he insinuates his depreciatory hints, as poison may be given in perfume. All of us know the 'but' for which his commendations are meant to prepare the way. He loves vague generalities too, uttered in such a connection that suggestions of evil will certainly be taken as pointing in a particular direction; whilst yet refutation can hardly be given, nor the charge of personal calumny brought home.

Into exaggeration and distortion of truth all of us are extremely apt to be drawn, often unconsciously. There are very few things more difficult than to tell the exact truth on any matter