But in the words selected, all this is reversed. Instead of the wilderness being fruitful, it is burned up; instead of the pastures being clothed with cattle, they are gone; instead of the melody of birds, they are all fled; there is complete desolation, the result of that hypocrisy and deception which the tongue, as an arrow, has shot out. The effects of evil are indeed here depicted most faithfully. The supreme affections of the soul are in a state of inversion, wherever hypocrisy and slander take up their abode. And truly has the wise man affirmed that "he who uttereth slander is a fool" (Prov. x. 18); for all men reverence truth, candour, and sincerity as honourable; and that man is no Christian who can find it in his heart, in any case or under any pretence, to slander or calumniate another; and the hypocrite must prostitute his conscience, sacrifice his honesty, and peril his soul, by such folly. Let us pause, and reflect seriously upon the folly and wickedness of slander and deception! When the supreme affection of the soul is devoted to the gratification of self and the world, how can the love of God dwell in such a mind? When the cupidity of gain has acquired the supreme place in the will, and every species of misrepresentation is resorted to, to undermine another, for the purpose of building up self; where there is no love of the neighbour whom we have seen, how shall the love of God dwell within us? How can there be obedience to the commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," when all the powers of the mind seem concentrated to bring ruin upon him by falsehood and misrepresentation? Melancholy, indeed, must be the state of him who speaks deceit, whose tongue is as an arrow shot out;
