You
might as well expect to raise harvests and vineyards on the side of
belching Stromboli as to have any great excellency grow upon your soul
when it so often overflows with the scoriae of this awful propensity.
You will never swear yourself up. You will swear yourself down. The
Mohammedans, when they find a slip of paper they cannot read, put
it aside, for fear the name of God is on it. That, you say, is one
extreme. We go to the other.
You are willing to acknowledge this a miserable habit, and would like
to have some recipe for its cure.
Reflect much upon the uselessness of the habit. Did a volley of oaths
ever start a heavy load? Did curses ever unravel a tangled skein? Did
they ever extirpate the meanness of a customer? Did they ever collect
a bad debt? Did they ever cure a toothache? Did they ever stop a
twinge of the gout? Did they ever save you a dollar, or put you a step
forward in any great enterprise? or enable you to gain a position, or
to accomplish anything that you ever wanted to do? How much did
you ever make by swearing? What, in all the round of a lifetime of
profanity, did you ever _gain_ by the habit?
Reflect, also, upon the fact that it arouses God's indignation.
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