1. Now all "idle words" are needless. You may be sure of this, that if God had made, as He has made, many expressions necessary to our ordinary conversation or adapted to our daily wants, such could never be "idle words." I do not mean to say, nor would I have you think by this, that any expressions of joy or merriment, that any of the amusing stories we hear, or any of the ordinary conversation of life, comes under the head of "idle words." But what I do mean by "idle words" and needless words is all that we commonly call gossip. Now gossip is quite needless. It is generally taken up with talk about our neighbours; rarely, very rarely, is any thing said in their favour--most often are their characters blackened. Now you know it is so easy often to say an unkind thing of a person, and so hard to say a kind one, that men prefer the easier method, and the character suffers thereby. But would this be so, think you, if we always remembered that for these and such like "idle words" God would bring us into judgment? 2. Then again there are _impure words_ and swearing. Now I daresay when you swear you don’t think of what it means. When you turn round upon a fellow man and curse him, it does not occur to you that you have solemnly called upon God to give his soul over to everlasting damnation. God Almighty alone can tell what effect that curse, so carelessly spoken, may have. I cannot and do not believe that it will affect the soul of him _against_ whom it is launched. But I do believe, for God has told us so, that that word, however carelessly and thoughtlessly spoken, will one day be brought up against the speaker, and for that and any other "idle words" he may have spoken, he "shall give an account in the day of judgment." And the same is true of impure words. They may be said thoughtlessly, but they may yet for all that do as much harm as if you had thought over them before speaking. Suppose you throw a stone into a pond, the stone sinks and you see it no more, and all you can see is a widening circle spreading ever farther and farther until it ripples at your feet upon the shore. And this is true of life. You speak an impure word, or you tell an impure tale to some of your friends, and you go away and forget it. But the word or the story may have been heard by a little child perhaps, and that word or story may be the first step on the road to its ruin. "For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account in the day of judgment."