_Swearing_.--Let the reader turn to his Bible concordance, and observe the hundreds of cases in which God and his people are represented as swearing. He can then understand why profanity is now more prevalent in Christian than in heathen countries. God himself is several times represented as swearing in his wrath (Ps. xcv. 11). It should therefore be expected to be prevalent amongst Christian Bible believers. As a Christian missionary was recently returning from India on board a British vessel, observing a Christian professor frequently swearing, he stepped to him, and observed, "Here, sir, is my son, twenty-one years old, born and raised in a heathen land, and to-day is the first time he ever heard a profane oath." Rather a withering lesson for a Christian professor. There are obviously two causes for the great prevalency of profane swearing in all Christian countries. One is its frequent indorsement in the Bible, and the other is the common custom of the priesthood apparently indulging in the practice in the pulpit. In their godly zeal to convert sinners, they exclaim, "God will damn you." The boys in the congregation catch the refrain, run into the street, and repeat the oath (dropping one word), "God damn you." Before we can expect this foolish and demoralizing practice to be abandoned, we must have a different Bible and different religious teachers; and also before we can prevent the heathen who read our Bible from imitating our example in swearing, or using profane language. _Cursing_.--The numerous cases of cursing recorded in the Bible-from Jehovah to Elisha, who cursed the sportive, saucy boys, and then destroyed them with bears, are calculated to engender and foster the worst and most malignant passions of the human mind. The very name of the Jews' God, Jehovah (Elohim), is derived from a root which signifies "to curse and to swear." And the immoral practice of cursing is continued from the Old Testament through the New.