“Words are mighty, words are living
Serpents with their venomed stings,
Or bright angels crowding round us,
With heaven’s light upon their wings;
Every word has its own spirit,
True or false, that never dies;
Every word man’s lips have uttered,
Lives on record in the skies.”
“Death and life,” says the wise man’s proverb, “are in the power of the tongue.” Words seem little things, so fleeting and evanescent, that apparently it cannot matter much of what sort they are. They are so easily spoken, that we forget what power they have to give pleasure or pain. They seem so swiftly gone after they have passed the door of our lips, and to have vanished so utterly, that we forget they do not really go away at all, but linger, either like barbed arrows in the heart where they struck, or, like fragrant flowers, distilling perfume. They seem to us, as we carelessly speak the, to be insignificant, and powerless for good or ill; and we do not stop to think, that, as they fly, they either tear down or build up fair fabrics of joy and peace in the souls of those to whom we speak. There have been words quietly spoken, which have broken like the lightning-flash, bearing sad desolation on their blighting wings, which years could not repair. On the other hand, there have been simple words which, treasured in memory, have hung like bright stars of joy and cheer in long, dark nights of sorrow and trial.
Page 1