+II. The blessing of using the tongue when we ought.+ "The tongue of the just is as choice silver." The lips of the righteous feed many because they supply a need. Man needs a medium by which to express the value of his labour or his merchandise, and silver supplies this want. And he likewise needs a medium by which to express his thoughts, and speech is this medium. But unless it is the speech of a _just_ man it will be a curse and not a blessing. It must convey _good thinking_ if it is to be as choice silver to a needy man. The prisoner who stands at the bar charged with a crime of which he is innocent feels that the tongue of the man who pleads his cause is more precious to him than much silver. To the man who is seeking after God, the tongue of one who can tell him "words whereby he shall be saved" is as choice silver (Acts xi. 14). The words of Peter were so esteemed by Cornelius. The heart of the Ethiopian eunuch was more rejoiced by the preaching of Philip the Evangelist than it would have been by the possession of the treasure of his mistress (Acts viii. 26-39). The words of Him who was "the Just One" (Acts iii. 14) are and ever will be "a strength to the needy in his distress" (Isa. xxv. 4); more precious to those who are conscious of their soul-poverty "than thousands of gold and silver" (Psalm cxix. 72); and it is in proportion as men are like Him in character and disposition that their speech will bless the world. +III. The sin of using the tongue too much.+ The shell and the kernel of the fruit were intended by God to grow together; the latter cannot grow to perfection without the former, yet the shell only exists for the kernel. The soul and body are ordained to grow together; the body only exists for the soul, yet the soul can only manifest itself through the medium of the body. But the body without the soul is worthless. Man's thought and word were intended by God to act together; thoughts are useless without speech in which to clothe them; words without thoughts have no reason for existence, they are shells without kernels, bodies without souls, and their use is a sin against God's ordained method. Where there is a "multitude of words" there is not much thought, and therefore there is sin.--1. _Against a man's self_, because "every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment" (Matt. xii. 36). 2. _Against society_, because the man utters sounds which contain nothing to benefit. God has ordained thought to feed the soul as He has ordained bread to feed the body. Where there are words men have a right to expect thoughts upon which to feed, as they have a right to look for the kernel within the shell. When they get the first without the last they are robbed of what is their due.