In calmer moments one knows that the value of his statement rests essentially on his own character for veracity. His mere word is enough and, in truth, all that one can offer. Violent expletives throw discredit on a person’s ordinary statements and suspicion on the one that he seeks to bolster up with artificial means. Profanity is one of the worst and most useless of sins. It brings good to none and harm to all, in particular to the one who uses it. “That ye fall not under judgment.” The Judge is at the door (James 5:9), and there is no escape. Worship and Excitement (5:13) Plummer has a very keen and pertinent heading for his chapter on this verse, and it is noteworthy that he devotes an entire chapter to this one verse, a verse that is little understood by most interpreters. His heading is this: “Worship the Best Outlet and Remedy for Excitement. The Connection between Worship and Conduct.” Certainly oaths are not the way to express one’s emotions, whether one be angry or merely excited, least of all when one has the miserable habit of profanity and is unaware of his foul speech. And yet it is not wrong to express one’s feelings. There is no merit in the self-repression of the cynic or the stoic. “Let the expression of strongly excited feelings be an act of worship” (Plummer). This is an intensely practical point. “Is any among you suffering?” And what church or community does not have one or more of these occasional or chronic sufferers? The word has a wider meaning than mere bodily sickness. Paul uses it for suffering hardship as a good soldier (2 Tim. 2:3, 9; 4:5). It includes any kind of ill of body or mind. It means, literally, having hard experiences, and it refers to natural depression as a result of such misfortunes. The remedy is not in despondency or in suicide. The remedy lies in prayer. “Let him pray,” let him pray as a habit (present tense of durative action). Prayer is a blessing to the heart and to the mental life. It is good to talk with God. The worry disappears in God’s presence and often the very ill itself disappears. But if it does not go, he gives grace sufficient to bear the burden. So then prayer is the proper outlet for the depressed Christian. Here lies one of the great blessings of public worship in the house of God. The tired soul finds rest in prayer in the house of prayer. There is comfort in secret prayer and in family worship, but the man makes a tremendous psychological blunder who cuts himself off from the spiritual tonic of the public worship of God. Those in charge of that worship should never fail to have in mind such persons who come to church seeking comfort and strength.