gently to answer; and that question is this. "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own Master he standeth or falleth . . . But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ."

I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

THIS text, inasmuch as it affords us a sample of the extent to which the inquiry will be carried, and of the minuteness, and particularity of the investigation which will take place at the last day, may be considered one of the most awful and alarming passthat is to be found in the whole compass of the revealed Will of God.

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It is enough to make our very hearts die within us, to reflect that for every wicked word we shall be judged on that day, in which the balance shall be struck between good and evil, and our lots be cast in heaven or hell.

It is terrible enough to think of what may be the amount of evil,-known, and confessed, and un

questioned evil, which may fall from the lips of any one of us, in any single year of our lives: but the Scripture I have just read to you teaches us, that for every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

Every idle word, every thoughtless speech, every unprofitable, unedifying conversation, every frivolous and foolish remark, everything that we ourselves should be the first to pronounce not worth repeating, will be repeated in the face of the assembled world, before men and angels, and form part of the Accuser's charges against us.

The blasphemer, and the profane swearer, will hear their sentence of well-deserved condemnation : this we know from many a passage of Holy Writ ; but if this be the case, how can we hesitate to infer from the text before us, that he who speaks lightly or irreverently of Holy things,-who can point a jest with scriptural quotation,-who presumes to trifle with the Law of God, by softening down or explaining away what that has strictly enjoined,— or who talks at all about religion, when he knows that his doing so will expose it to the mocking of unholy tongues; how, I say, can we hesitate to infer that such a person has involved himself in an amount of guilt, as great as it is probably unsuspected, and that he will be judged hereafter with a very different

judgment, and by a very different rule, from that which he at present expects?

"Whoremongers and adulterers," our Bible tells us, "will God judge:" and the same volume assures us, that "he that looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart."-Such being the case, can we fail to draw the conclusion which my text renders so obvious, that the expression of implied impurity,-the words which raise or encourage a sensual thought, the sentence uttered with a double sense-language such as the world uses when it would palliate the enormous guilt of fornication and adultery, and in which its way is to speak as though things were venial, because they are common-shall we fail to draw the conclusion, that any language, in short, which has uncleanness in its source, or which fosters, however remotely, those fleshly lusts which war against the soul,-is hateful in the sight of Him, Who is Purity itself, and readeth hearts; and that it will be judged by him hereafter, with a righteous judgment?

"All liars," saith the word of God, "shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death:" and in this fearful doom is to be comprised not only he that "maketh," but he that loveth a lie."

Seeing, then, that these things are so, can we

avoid the manifest deduction from my text, namely, that they whose conversation is chiefly about their neighbours' actions, and who (in order to make that conversation agreeable and amusing in the opinion of the world) are perpetually on the look-out for anecdotes of their neighbours' follies and infirmities, -who repeat without scruple the tales and calumnies of the day,-who purposely misrepresent, or who carelessly exaggerate,-who tell the truth, but not the whole truth,-shall, in proportion to their error, be called on to account for it before the judgmentseat of Christ?

And, to quote one more instance,-(common enough, it is to be feared, in the present times, and therefore very needful for the consideration of all,)— we are solemnly warned by St. Peter, that they who "speak evil" of their fellow-christians "shall give an account" thereof "to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead." For the calumniator, therefore, of his neighbour's good deeds and motives, for the censorious, for the back-biter, for the mischiefmaker, for the malignant and uncharitable man who arraigns the sincerity and disinterestedness of those with whose religious opinions he disagrees, the vengeance of God is preparing. He that judgeth his brother, shall himself be judged: he that condemneth his brother, shall himself be condemned.