one soul from sorrow, perhaps from destruction. In the everyday life
of everybody, crises of less moment accentuate experience, and tend to
make the nature richer or poorer.

I incline to the belief that nine-tenths of the remorseful heartaches
which most of us know only too well, might be spared us did we pause
to repeat to ourselves the Latin or English sentence. It may be a
relic of barbarism, but it is an undeniable trait of human nature that
all of us feel the longing to "answer back," or, as the children put
it, to "get even with" the man or woman whose speech offends us. The
apostle showed marvelous knowledge of the weakness of sinful mortals
when he affirmed that the tongue was an unruly member, for it is
easier to perform a herculean feat, to strain physical strength and
muscle to the utmost, than to bite back the sharp retort, or repress
the acrid reply. And there is such a hopelessness in the sentence once
uttered! It is gone from us forever. We may regret it and show our
repentance in speech and action, but we cannot blot the memory of the
cruel words from our minds, or from the mind of the person,--perhaps a
mere acquaintance, oftener bone of our bone and flesh of our
flesh,--in whose heart the barbed arrows of our eloquence rankle for
months and years. The dear friend may forgive freely and fully the
bitter censure or unjust reproof, but a scar is left which, if touched
in a moment of inadvertence, will pulse and throb with the remembrance
of pain.

"Leave the bitter word unspoken;
So shalt thou be strongly glad,
If there lies no backward shadow
On dead faces, wan and sad."