water were to fall on them, and is not God's eye as good as ours ? " would not suffice to record the dark deeds of these miserable men who The mortality was great, but not represent themselves as the special so great as I have often seen it, as favourites of the Lord of the world. the weather was fine and the pilgrims One day I met the Collector of comparatively few. There were up- Pooree and our Commissioner in wards of ninety pilgrims in the the festival. I pointed out the forhospital during the festival, and at lorn state of everything connected a rough guess you may put this with the idols, cars, &c. "Yes, down at about one tenth of the said the Collector, it seems as though sufferers. Some of the tales the it was on its last legs." Would that doctor told us were heart rending. it may prove so! We remained He said there was then in the several days after the festival, i. e., hospital a poor young woman about after the idols were brought out of twenty two years of age in deep the temple and put on the cars, and distress. Her mother and brother enjoyed the opportunities for preachhad gone away and left her on the ing after the heat of the excitement road to die; and now, without a even more than before. When we friend and far from home what could left to return to our homes we found she do? Others said that they had the road in a most wretched state. money with them when taken ill, but | From Piplee I was more than twelve the pundahs had taken all away, and hours coming twenty-five miles. in one case a poor young woman was These roads are a perfect disgrace robbed not only of her money, brass to a civilized Government. No vessels, and ornaments, but even of wonder at the uproar in England her cloth, and left on the road quite about them. I wish it was ten times naked, ready as it should seem for greater than it is. Why for five the dogs to begin their meal! or six successive days the post was Generally speaking they are glad stopped on the road from Calcutta, to recover, but one old lady did not and I hear there are some ten at all approve of the doctor's inter- thousand pilgrims stopped without ference. She seemed to be dying, either food or shelter, and that they but he forced some medicine down are dying by hordes of cholera and her, and she recovered; she how- starvation! What trade, what comever abused him lustily for robbing merce, what anything can go on in the god of her, just when he was such a country? It is time this going to take her away. Speaking D. P. W.-i. e., "Department of of the pundahs, the doctor called Public Works" was transferred to them "Human Carrion" and really some other department. This road no other term seems so fitly to de- you must remember is always filled scribe them. A poor old man came with traffic, and is traversed by up to me in great distress one day, hundreds of thousands of people saying that a pundah had clipped a annually!! hole in his cloth and taken away his money bag which contained rupees 4-2 or 8s. 3d., which was all he had. He had a long way to go to his home, and not a fraction left to procure food on the road. Bitterly did he curse the pundahs and Juggernath and all, and vowed he would "never come there again." Volumes While I went to Pooree I left instructions for some of the native preachers to go to the Dhekanall where a large festival is held. They were kindly entertained by the rajah, to whom I gave them a letter. Pray that the seed thus sown by the side of all waters may yield an abundant harvest. EDITOR'S NOTE.-A press of interesting matter compels the omission until next month of Contribution Lists and other articles. In order to insert them the Editor was anxious to curtail some of the papers given in the present number, even after they were in type. He leaves it to his readers to judge whether this could have been done with advantage. Seldom has it been his lot to read so deeply interesting and encouraging a paper as that headed "The Baptist Mission in India." He commends every word of it to the grateful study of all the friends of our own Society. THE GENERAL BAPTIST MAGAZINE. OCTOBER, 1863. THE USE AND ABUSE OF CONVERSATION. pressively say, we THE gift of speech is among the | to thought a 'local habitation and a most wonderful of the endowments name;' or as we sometimes exwith which God has invested His " clothe' our human family. It is one of those every day miracles whose mysterious character is concealed by the fact of their commonness. Just as we do not notice the wonders of the light, because it beams upon us every day, or of the air, because it perpetually embosoms the earth in its pulsations of beauty, so we pass by the strange power of language because we learn it in our infancy and use it all our life. Yet it is wonderful. It belongs to man only among all the beings upon earth. Sounds and noises there are indeed everywhere around us, but they are as we say in articulate, that is, they are not speech. The songs of birds, the characteristic lowing or roar of the quadrupeds are a sort of elementary speech, but they have none of the higher qualities which belong to the language of man. No being who has not reason can truly speak; for as one has said, 'Man's word is his reason going forth so that it can behold itself, becoming incarnate and taking distinct form.' In language we give VOL. IV.-NEW SERIES, No. 10. It is wonderful too to see how in this, as in so many other cases, God has accomplished results of the greatest importance by very simple means. For the outward or physical elements of speech are by no means complicated. The tongue, the lips, and the air, these are all. The tongue strikes upon the air in a peculiar manner so as to set a little wave or current in motion, and lo! the movements of the air as it shakes are converted into words-the angels of thought and feeling. By the shaking of the air the crowds who listen to an orator, receive the inspiration of his spirit. In the ways of God the wonderful and the simple | an account before God. By thy words are very near each other. The shalt thou be justified, and by thy commonest things are the vehicles words thou shalt be condemned. He of the greatest. If we think of all that seemeth to be religious, and bridleth that speech has done, of the thoughts not his tongue that man's which it has stirred, and the changes religion is vain. And in like manner, which it has wrought in the world, the words of Paul in Ephesians iv. and then remember that all this has 29, Let no corrupt communication been accomplished by shakings of proceed out of your mouth, but that the atmosphere, we shall marvel at which is good to the use of edifying, the power of little things. that it may minister grace unto the hearers, call us to think of the solemn responsibilities connected with the intercourse which we carry on with each other in conversation. They tell us that God holds us to answer for the effect of our words, and therefore we may be sure, for our words themselves. We are cautioned to guard our conversation, as a matter of great consequence. Believing that we think too little of this, and need to be awakened to the perception of the power which we are wielding continually, either for evil or for good, in the use of words, let us point out the use and the abuse of conversation. God then has given this power to man, and made man what he is by the gift. For a dumb world would not be a human world at all-it would be a world of animals only. Men might think, but their thoughts being uncommunicated would wake no thought in other minds. They might love, but they could not kindle affection in the hearts of others to answer to their own. Newton might discover the wonders of astronomy, but succeeding generations would be none the wiser if there were no words in which his discoveries could be preserved. Milton or Shakspere might sing their immortal thoughts, but they would sing them in the silence of We shall discover the use of a their own spirits, and the modern thing by considering the end or world would be unbenefited. Busi-purpose for which it exists. Nothing ness would come to a dead-lock. in the world is without some such There would be no such thing as social life and intercourse. Art and science would die away. The Gospel itself could be no longer preached and would become a forgotten story. Men, in a word, would cease to be men and descend to the life of the brutes. If we think how much of our life is bound up with language-how much, that is, we spend either in speaking or hearing words, we shall not wonder that language mixes itself with the other things for which we are held responsible. Considering that nearly all the good we do, and a large part of the evil we commit, are effected through the medium of language, we are prepared to believe that we shall have to answer for the uses which we make of this tremendous gift. And the Scriptures tells us that it is so. For every idle word that men shall speak they shall give purpose. The 'meanest flower that blows' fills an allotted space in the great plan of Creation. For Nature is an unity, every part of which holds intimate, though often mysterious, relations with the rest. God holds one end of the chain of being, but all things and all events are links in the chain which moveth altogether, if it move at all.' The Infinite Reason strings the world upon the threads of its perfect thought, so that nothing is out of place. This holds good, of course, with relation to the power of speech in men. It is given for a purposea purpose surely which it behoves us to ascertain. Without going into any minute discussion, we may say broadly, that the purpose of language is the communication of our thoughts. It is God's way of breaking up the isolation of man-the plan by which gloomy thoughts of religion who can see in this any sinful tendency, or who can imagine that it displeases the Great Father. Let us get rid of the morbid notion that what is pleasant is therefore sinful-a notion bred in the sickly brains of nervous monks or sour fanatics. No-the question is, not whether we shall enjoy conversation, but how we shall use as not abusing it. hearers. We would propose a He setteth those who would otherwise be solitary in families. Those who speak one tongue are connected by very close bonds of union. But this general purpose breaks up obviously into a number of subordinate ones. We employ speech to transact business, to impart instruction, to influence the character of others, and also to interchange thought and feeling purely that we may enjoy the pleasures of affectionate and In answering this question the social intercourse. All these are words of the apostle will help us. parts of the general end, and Let no corrupt communication proceed are all quite right and legitimate out of your mouth, but that which applications of the gift. We have is good to the use of edifying, that to do here only with the expression it may minister grace unto the of our thoughts in free and friendly intercourse, the conversation which takes place at home by our firesides, and at the houses of our familiar friends. And this has two sides or aspects in which it presents itself to view. We seek it either as the means of expressing our views and learning the views of others, or else simply for recreation, purely that we may enjoy society; in other words, it is either serious and instructive, or it is free and social. Perhaps it is best of all when it is both. It is then most pleasant when 'the feast of reason and the flow of soul' is broken by bursts of laughter, by words of affection, or by chitchat concerning men and things. Now how shall we rightly use these hours of conversation? How shall we enjoy them innocently and make them worthy of our vocation as men and Christians? How shall we pre-order our social intercourse. pare to give account concerning them? Let no one say that we have no right to such hours. We have. Even when they have no immediate purpose but the pleasure of entertaining others and being ourselves entertained, they are quite just and allowable. Conversation draws men into closer friendship, opens up the springs of kind feeling, gives us an interest in the happiness of others, genializes our nature, rubbing off the angles of character, and adds a gentleness and grace to our manner of feeling and of speech. Men must have strange ideas of God and slightly different reading of these First then, negatively, avoid what is corrupt' in your communications. We have said that the end of conversation is to quicken minds and hearts by free contact one with another. It is, in other words, so to touch each other as to become brighter, better, and happier men than before. Consider this, and you will see how great necessity there is to avoid what is corrupt.' This word (both the English and the original) refers in its first use to the decay or rotting of animal or vegetable matter, and is then applied figura bring a blush into the cheek of modesty, or send a thrill through a reverent spirit. These are SO plainly evil as to need no exposure. But within these limits there is a large conversational margin, so to speak, in which vice may be rather implied than distinctly expressed, and the vapours of a bad heart may distil over to others through the medium of words. The very tone in which a worldly man speaks is little he believes in self-sacrifice, disinterestedness, patriotism, or magnanimity. He receives the mention of these things with a knowing smile, as though he were 'up to all that,' takes for granted the depravity both of his own motives and those of the world at large, and talks on the principles of the most undisguised selfishness. Is there not too much of this by our firesides? If so, why is it? If these words of impurity come from your lips, surely it is time to repent; if not from yours, but from the lips of some who visit you, then we would ask, as you respect yourselves, why let a man sit in your house and insult you by assuming that you are as great a rascal as he, great enough at all events, to enjoy the expression of his depravity, and to smile ap probation upon his cold-hearted worldliness? tively to things spiritual, or of the soul. A corrupt thing, is a decaying, rotting thing, and of consequence a corrupt word or communication is one which comes from a decaying mind, a rotting heart, and tends to produce a moral decay and rottenness in those who hear. Vice is the decay of the higher nature of man. Conscience rusts away till it no longer exists; and affection in a vicious man turns putrid and mortifies; what can be more ex-corrupt.' He makes you feel how pressive than the applying of an image derived from this fact to the effect of evil words? The word carries its own argument with it. Avoid, when you seek strength and vigour in conversation, what will undermine your strength and spread abroad a living death. Receive and give no decaying influences, no blighting and putrid words. Take care of your moral health and that of those with whom you converse. What then are corrupt communications ? We answer: they cover the space marked out by the writer in the verses which precede and follow. Some have been for restricting Paul's words to one kind of impurity, that kind to which the ancient world was so peculiarly prone, but in doing so they have weakened their force unduly. All sins of the lip,-folly, falsehood, impurity, slander, and whatever else they may be, are 'corrupt,' and all are here forbidden. These words must include all which springs from and expresses corruption in ourselves and all which tends to produce it in others. Read the whole chapter; see the virtues which St. Paul enumerates as characteristic of the Christian life; whatever is inconsistent with these is corrupt.' As for example, all expression of positively vicious sentiment in conversation, is 'corrupt.' Gil Blas mortality; cold, worldly, hardhearted speeches; misanthropic flings, which tend to weaken our reverence for humanity, or our faith in goodness and in God are 'corrupt.' We speak not now of words so dark and coarse as to But again: simply idle and meaningless babble, aimless, purposeless talking for talking's sake, is included under this condemnation. For, not to speak of the waste of time which it produces, it becomes clear to a moment's thought that it can have no other than an evil effect upon the character generally, both of the speaker and of those who hear him. There are those whose prevailing quality is a fondness for hearing their own voice, who have a passion to be perpetually talking. So long as they chat about the weather and the crops we may let it pass, only regretting that they have not a more worthy employment. But unfortunately the weather and the crops will not last for ever. The |