The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, December 01, 1897, Image 20

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    THE BATTALION.
19
conversationlist is the tinsel of fake wit. Very little induce
ment will lead the vain man or woman to mistake the most
frivolous nonsense for wit. The true coin from this mintage
is very rare, on the contrary, a base and self-exposing coun-
terfit of it is plentiful, and, strange to say, we often appear to
receive it as genuine and countenance, knowing all the time
that it is spurious. You could not insult a money dealer
more than by attempting to pass a counterfit coin upon him.
You cannot hurt the man or woman of true, intelligence more
than by offering to his mental grasp the cast off’ wittiness of
others or a poor imitative of them molded in the egotism of
your own country. Pedantry may be condoned, spurious wit
is unpardonable and befits only the circus ring or the min-
estrel show.
But there is a far higher aim than that of entertainment
for the attainment of which the conversational power should
be exercised. “ Thy speech betrayeth thee ” from a moral
point of view. The words of a man’s mouth ought to be and
are intended by the Almighty to be a faithful index of his
heart meditations; hence that logical prayer of the Psalmist:
“ let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart
be always acceptable in thy sight, 0 Lord, my strength and
my redeemer.” The egotist in tongue is an egotist at heart,
the man of silly frivolous speech is a man ot shallow intellect,
he is all foulness within whose mouth is filled with filthy con
versation. There are poor unfortunates so diseased in body
that for self preservation we are obliged to avoid their con
tact; the leper of Bible times while suffered to go at large was
required to keep away from human habitations, and to cry
out “ unclean ” when approached by his fellowmen; God keep
us and our homes and innocent ones from the contagious
breath of him whose conversation is a germ bed of pollution !
Young man, I sometimes hear the warning signal “ unclean ”
from lips that are contaminated whilst heart is not yet wholly
foul. Be reasonable in time, he who handles pitch cannot
long remain undefiled, he who handles jargon and puts him-