Again.  Among poor women, as well as among rich ones, as they grow older, how much gossiping, tale-bearing, slandering, there is, and that too among people who call themselves religious.  Yes, I say slandering; I put that in too; for I am certain that where the first two grow, the third is not far off.  If gossiping is the root, tale-bearing and harsh judgment is the stem, and plain lying and slandering, and bearing false witness against one’s neighbour, is the fruit.

Now I say, because St. Paul says it, ’that those who do such things shall surely die.’  And do not some of you think me unreasonable in that, and say in your heart, ’What! are we to be tongue-tied?  Shall we not speak our minds?’ Be it so, my good women, only remember this:  that as long as you say that, you confess that you are not masters of your tongues, but your tongues are masters of you, and that you freely confess you owe service to your tongue, and not to God.  Do not therefore complain of me for saying the very same thing, namely, that you think you are debtors to your flesh—­to the tongues in your mouths, and must needs do what those same little unruly members choose, of which St James has said, ’The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity, and it sets on fire the whole course of nature, and is set on fire of hell.’  And again:  ’If any person among you seem to be religious, and bridles not his tongue, but deceives himself, that person’s religion is vain.’

Again:—­and, my good women, you must not think me hard on you, for you know in your hearts that I am not hard on you; but I must speak a word on a sin which I am afraid is growing in this parish, and in too many parishes in England; and that is deceiving kind and charitable persons, in order to get more help from them.  God knows the temptation must be sore to poor people at times.  And yet you will surely find in the long run, that ‘honesty is the best policy.’  Deceit is always a losing game.  A lie is sure to be found out; as the Lord Jesus Himself says, ’There is nothing hid which shall not be made manifest;’ and what we do in secret, is sure, unless we repent and amend it, to be proclaimed on the housetop:  and many a poor soul, in her haste and greediness to get much, ends by getting nothing at all.  And if it were not so;—­if you were able to deceive any human being out of the riches of the world:  yet know, that a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses.  And know that if you will not believe that,—­if you will fancy that your business is to get all you can for your mortal bodies, by fair means or foul,—­if you will fancy that you are thus debtors to your own flesh, you will surely die:  but if you, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live.

And by this time some of you are asking, ’Live?  Die?  What does all this mean?  When we die we shall die, good or bad; and in the meantime we shall live till we die.  And you do not mean to tell us that we shall shorten our lives by our own tempers, or our tale-bearing, though we might, perhaps, by drunkenness?’