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SHORT

RELIGIOUS ESSAYS

UPON THE

GIFT OF SPEECH, AND ITS EMPLOYMENT

IN CONVERSATION.

BY

EDWARD MEYRICK GOULBURN, D.D.

PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL'S,

CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF OXFORD,

AND ONE OF HER MAJESTY'S CHAPLAINS IN ORDINARY.

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Sacred interpreter of human thought,

How few respect or use thee as they ought!
But all shall give account of every wrong,

Who dare dishonour or defile the tongue."-Cowper.

"By the words thou shalt be justified:

And by thy words thou shalt be condemned."

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En Memory

OF THE LATE

RIGHT HON. HENRY GOULBURN, M.P.,

WHO HAS PASSED TO HIS REST

SINCE THIS TREATISE

ON THE GOVERNMENT OF THE TONGUE,

A GRACE WHICH HE SINGULARLY

EXEMPLIFIED,

WAS FIRST INSCRIBED TO HIM.

PREFACE.

THE reader of this little Book will soon discover from the style adopted in parts of it, that the substance of the several Chapters has been delivered in the form of Sermons. But the throwing of these Sermons into the form of short Religious Essays has given me the opportunity of introducing matter unsuited for the Pulpit, and of erasing much which had only a special reference to the circumstances and temptations of my own flock. At the same time, I have felt unwilling (in this, as in a former, publication) to omit entirely all practical addresses and appeals of a devotional character, however out of place such passages may seem to be in an Essay. For indeed I feel that all exclusively speculative treatment of Religious Subjects (and specially of a subject having so close a bearing upon practice, as that with which the following Pages deal) is to be avoided. We do not think on these subjects aright, unless our minds are led on from the theory of them to the influence which they ought to exercise upon our practice,-unless we allow them to stir within us the sentiments

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