The danger is so easily incurred by even right-thinking men, that Addison enjoins perfect abstinence from the passing mention of the name of the Deity, instancing the Jewish prohibition which forbad its use even in professedly religious discourses. And in this point of veneration, we shall find the practice of Judaea to have been more precise than anything that is recorded of a nation. Apart from the high deliberative swearing that was so severely visited by the Mosaic law, the use of most unmeaning and flippant particles was met with signal retribution. The man who standing in the Syrian market-place made mention of the holy name in reference to the common incidents of the day--to the lusciousness of the melons, the knavery of the merchants--a mere impatient whisper, perhaps, in all the hubbub of the fair, was instantly deprived of civil rights. He had lost all power of intercourse or conversation. He could not appear at a feast of three or a congregation of ten; he could not mourn for a brother or bury a child. The sentence was only removed after thirty days of expiation. In the 'Spectator' of May 6th, in the same year, he recounts an experiment supposed to have been successfully practised in a company of hardened swearers. A host is presented as having invited to his table as many of his friends as were conspicuous for their proficiency in swearing. He takes the precaution to station a shorthand writer in a concealed part of the room. The repast, as may be supposed, was rendered terrific by the unceasing clatter of oaths, but as soon as it had ended, the Amphytrion ushered in the scribe, who proceeded to read aloud the faithful report he had taken down. The writer, it would seem, had filled many sheets with this animated conversation, but this was found to be so interspersed with swearing redundancies that the whole might have been summarised in a single page. The perusal of the document, we are informed, so far brought conviction to the minds of the swearers, that they forthwith began to work with a will to amend their lives and their vocabulary.