Page:Poverty and Riches, a sermon.djvu/15

Rh that of utterance, we are in the main but dealing with the outward expression of a man's inward measure of himself. For amidst all the treacheries, and defects, and exuberances of the tongue, it is yet true in the main, and ever will be, that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Still, in the method of putting forth this inward character, there is immense difference between man and man: and though the speech, on the whole, is an index of the thought, no one can fail to observe, that within certain limits, men's speech often misrepresents them: one man, if judged by his talk, would be overrated; another, if tried by the same test, would be depreciated. So that it may be well to say a few words on this head also.

In discourse then as well,—discourse as a personal habit, and not as a mere index of thought,—"there is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing." The man of much and random talk about himself is universally set down as a man of nought: this extreme all of us who have any good feeling consent to avoid. But we do not perhaps reflect that there are many steps short of this, which nevertheless tend the same way. I would especially mention, by way of example, the habit of speaking about religious matters in a tone far above men's own real religious attainment. This is the natural temptation of a controversial age; and I fear it is one very commonly yielded to among ourselves. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the