December 8

“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” — Jas 1:19

We ought to think twice before we speak. Sometimes we are advised if we are feeling unkindly, to count ten before we open our mouth. Yet hasty words ofttimes fly from our lips in the moment of excited feeling; and before we have time to think twice, or count half of ten, the harm is done, the sharp word has flashed like a dart into some gentle heart.

These hasty words are spoken, too, most frequently between those who love each other. We control our speech fairly well when it is with strangers, or ordinary acquaintances we are speaking; but with those we love best–we are less careful. We let our worry or our weariness make us irritable, and then we utter the hasty words which five minutes afterward, we would give all we have to recall. But such words never can be recalled. They may be forgiven, for love forgives until seventy times seven times; but the wounds, the scars, remain.