of
rhetoric, giving spice and condiment to his thoughts. There are
occasions when he considers his talk only reliable in its truthfulness
as this evil accompanies it. He would not be a man in his own judgment
if he did not swear. He thinks he magnifies his own importance in the
estimation of other people; but, alas! he promotes his own shame and
disgrace before the eyes of the wise and good.

The common swearer is confined to no rank or age in society. I have
heard the youth who was barely in his teens indulge in this sin, as
though it had been a part of his parental or day-school education. I
have heard the young gentleman, so-called, recently returned from the
walks of a University, pollute his lips and character with this shameful
vice. I have heard the man who laid claim to wealth, to intelligence, to
respectability, and to honour, pour forth his swearing words. I have
heard the man who has stood in official relation to the state, and who
considered himself a "justice of the peace," break the holy commandment
with impunity. I have even heard one, called by the misnomer, "lady," do
disgrace to her sex by this sinful fault in conversation. In the
household, with a group of little ones whose minds were just unfolding
to receive first impressions, I have heard the parents swear as though
they were licensed to do so by reason. In company, where common civility
ought to have restrained, I have heard the utterances of the swearer's
horrid voice. In the street, where public decency ought to have
deterred, I have again and again heard the revolting expressions of this
talker's leprous tongue. In the shop, while transacting business, I have
heard him give vent to his blasphemies, when a kind reproof has only
seemed for the time to enrage his demoniacal spirit to more fiery
ebullitions. How humiliating is this sin to human nature! How it severs
from everything that is holy and honourable! How it insults and
blasphemes the glorious Lord of earth and heaven! How closely it allies
to "the prince of the power of the air"!

"It might puzzle a philosopher," says Ogden, "to trace the love of
swearing to its original principle, and assign its place in the
constitution of man.

"Is it a passion, or an appetite, or an instinct? What is its just
measure, its proper object, its ultimate end?

"Or shall we conclude that it is entirely the work of art? a vice which
men have invented for themselves without prospect of pleasure or profit