lips. Hopeless, however, as might be the effort to control the tongue of another, not so is the attempt to control our own. It is confessedly difficult, but it is indispensably requisite for the same Apostle has said "If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain." The Government of the Tongue, then, it is absolutely necessary to attain; and he who acquires it in the highest degree, is the Christian of most distinguished eminence :"If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body." The human body is here represented, by

the Apostle, as a complex system of members and organs, designed to be subject to the authority, and subservient to the purposes of the indwelling mind. Of these organs, there is one, over which it is peculiarly difficult to obtain a due ascendancy. If then that control be acquired, much easier will be the task of duly restraining the rest; so that the man who has acquired the government of his tongue, may be supposed to have attained a correspondent dominion over all the organs, over all the senses, and over all the appetites of the corporeal frame. If any man, therefore, could be found, who, since the acquisition of that power, had never in any instance abused, nor

failed to improve, the faculty of speech, he might be regarded as a perfect man: and, in so far as there is an approach to this exalted attainment, there is acquired, by the controlling mind, a facility in bridling and governing the complex system of "the outer man."

Let me, then, engage your fixed attention,

FIRST, To the peculiar importance of the government of the Tongue; and,

SECONDLY, To the principles by which this Government is to be acquired and maintained.

FIRST, let us reflect on the importance of attaining this control. Consider, first, The dignity and excellence of the faculty of speech.

He who delights to gather materials for admiration and praise, out of the curious and wondrous economy of man's living frame, will find much to repay his researches in the contemplation of the faculty of speech. Think of the delicate and difficult articulations which intelligible speech requires. Think of the combination of a few simple and elementary sounds denoted by a small number of alphabetical characters, so as to form all the thousands of words which we employ in the conveyance of thought. Think of the power acquired in early life, of connecting with these sounds the ideas which they are employed to express; so that even before the formalities of

education have commenced, there has been an admirable progress made in the knowledge of the arbitrary symbols of thought, by means of which we converse. Think of the power of memory which the use of language involves. Think of the influence of words in aiding and guiding all our processes of thought, even when no sentence escapes our lips. Who gave us this power of articulate speech, which raises us so far above the most sagacious of all the inferior tribes of animated nature? Who sustains all the delicate sensibilities of the ear and of the tongue, required for distinct articulation? Answer such questions as these, and surely you will not be disposed to unite with those who