The Habit Of Profane Swearing

THE HABIT OF PROFANE SWEARING

In a little town out here in the West there has just been organized an "Anti-Swearing Club."

The object of this club will be to cultivate the habit of correct speech among its member, and through them to influence for the better the speech of the entire community. 

The profanity habit is not the worst in the world, but it is bad enough; and if the club thus organized can stop or materially curtail the habit it will be thanked by a great many people. 

It is painful in the highest degree to hear the holiest names in the vocabulary of our human speech kicked and bandied about like so many footballs!

This is a wonderful world in which we have, with its day and night, winter and summer, seedtime and harvest; its wide-reaching continents, rolling seas and grand old firmament! 

And here in the midst of it all are ourselves, with our "bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire," with our good and evil, our smiles and tears, our hopes and fears!

The world and ourselves! Together they make a tremendous fact, a fact that keeps us busy trying to account for it. 

In thinking about it we come to the conclusion that behind the mystery-- the mystery of the world and ourselves--stands GOD. 

It is the largest, the holiest word ever pronounced by human lips, because it stands for the largest, holiest thought ever born of the human brain!

And it is not good manners to use this great word as many are in the habit of doing. 

The man that flings that sacred word around profanely may not be bad at heart, but there is no escaping the conclusion that he is criminally careless. 

But one closer even than the word GOD we often hear kicked and cuffed around the cubstones and alleys by thoughtless mortals.

This is the name JESUS. 

Do you know, you are in the habit of bandying that name about in your silly oaths, what it stands for?

Have you read the little book known as the New Testament? Have you read it seriously, with a real desire to understand it?

If you have you are prepared to agree with us that Jesus was not only the purest being ever on earth, but also the kindliest. 

Reader! Jesus was the best friend our poor old humanity ever had. He lived for but one purpose--to make us better and happier, and at last He died a martyr to the truth which, out of His love for us, He could not desert. 

That name is worthy of a more respectful treatment at your hands. You should be ashamed to use it as you do! 

But quite apart from all this the fact remains that words are the symbols of our thoughts, hopes and noblest ideals, and to lightly treat the symbols of these thoughts, hopes and ideals is to lightly treat, and eventually to despise, our better selves. 

Profanity of speech leads logically to profanity of thought and desire, and the man that has no reverence for the symbol is in danger of losing his reverence for the thing of which the symbol is the reflection.--Chicago American.