Gift of tongues

“ I read likewise that the Holy Ghost bestowed the gift of tongues, and the power of working miracles; which, if rightly considered, is as great a miracle as any, that a number of illiterate men should of a sudden be qualified to speak all the languages then known in the world ”

“ It is the passage where he says that the gift of tongues, which was an obvious sensational thing, was for the uninstructed, but that prophecies—that is, real spiritual messages—were for the elect. In other words, that an experienced Spiritualist has no need of phenomena. ”

“ The gift of taste is the gift of God, we can use that to feed and pamper the lusts of the flesh, or we can use it to the glory of God.
The gift of communicating one with another is the gift of God, just as much so as the gift of prophecy, of discerning spirits, of tongues, of healing, or any other gift, though sight, taste, and speech, are so generally bestowed that they are not considered in the same miraculous light as are those gifts mentioned in the Gospel. ”

“ By talents understand all the gifts of God, without which we can do nothing. These gifts are, I say—1st Of grace, both making grateful, [1] such as faith, hope, charity, virginity, and all the other virtues, as well as those of grace given gratis—such as the power of working miracles, the Apostolate, the Priesthood, the gift of tongues, prophecy, &c. 2d Natural gifts, such as a keen intellect, a sound judgment, a sound constitution, prudence, industry, learning, eloquence. 3d External goods and gifts, as honours, riches, rank, &c. ”

“ If our mouth were like the sea, our lips like its waves, our tongue like the rugged mountains, then we could praise you, glorify you, honor you, bless you. You know it, who fears you from the heart and who confesses you only: with the lips. With a pure mouth you are blessed, with a tongue of praise you are praised. ”

“ Thou hast given me a tongue, says the antient writer, that I may praise thee therewith. For this purpose was it given to all the children of men, to be employed in glorifying God. Nothing therefore is more ungrateful, or more absurd, than to think or say, our tongues are our own. That cannot be, unless we have created ourselves, and so are independent on the Most High. ”

“ The accents of its iron tongue have a strange influence over human sympathies; or, rather, they chime in with every tone of sentiment, and make religion more venerable, grief more tender, and joy more gladsome. ”

“ For the tongue is a smouldering fire, and excess of speech a deadly poison. Material fire consumeth the body, whereas the fire of the tongue devoureth both heart and soul. The force of the former lasteth but for a time, whilst the effects of the latter endure a century. ”

“ Not only is our mother-tongue, then, the instrument of our culture, but the way to master it is to study it, in lieu of any foreign tongue, living or dead. For English-speaking people the "special-culture study" is not Latin and Greek or either, but English. The mother tongue, if I may recur to the botanical figure, is the tap-root of the tree of mind, whereof no other tongue can be more than a rootlet. Neglect it, and you dwarf the intellect; cherish it, and the intellect shoots up into full stature. Our mother-tongue is the source of our mental growth. ”

“ The wearied eye and the unvisited ear are regaled by glorious visions and seraphic melody; yea, the parched tongue, and haggard, bleeding flesh, are made to know delights of taste and touch, that melt with most delicious pleasure through the frame, and beggar with their transport all the joys of banquets or of love. ”

“ Astir with sound. But idol-films do tend,
As once sent forth, in straight directions all;
Wherefore one can inside a wall see naught,
Yet catch the voices from beyond the same.
Nor tongue and palate, whereby we flavour feel,
Present more problems for more work of thought.
Firstly, we feel a flavour in the mouth,
When forth we squeeze it, in chewing up our food,--
As any one perchance begins to squeeze
With hand and dry a sponge with water soaked.
Next, all which forth we squeeze is spread about
Along the pores and intertwined paths
Of the loose-textured tongue. ”

“ Should the fragrance of Thy praise be shed abroad by any of the divers tongues of the world, out of the East or out of the West, it would, verily, be prized and greatly cherished. If such tongues, however, be deprived of that fragrance, they assuredly would be unworthy of any mention, in word or yet in thought. We beg of Thee, O Providence, to show Thy way unto all men, and to guide them aright. Thou art, verily, the Almighty, the Most Powerful, the All-Knowing, the All-Seeing. ”

“ If ye be aware of a certain truth, if ye possess a jewel, of which others are deprived, share it with them in a language of utmost kindliness and goodwill. If it be accepted, if it fulfill its purpose, your object is attained. If anyone should refuse it, leave him unto himself, and beseech God to guide him. Beware lest ye deal unkindly with him. A kindly tongue is the lodestone of the hearts of men. ”

“ Not possibly will the soul all rich, all eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat itself; but if you can hear what these patriarchs say, surely you can reply to them in the same pitch of voice; for the ear and the tongue are two organs of one nature. ”

“ Of all the faculties wherewith God has endowed his noblest creature, none is more divine and mysterious than the faculty of speech. It is the gift whereby man is raised above the beasts; the gift whereby soul speaks to soul; the gift whereby mere pulses of articulated air become breathing thoughts and burning words; the gift whereby we understand the affections of men and give expression to the worship of God ”

“ Your order was, That I shouid make the Best Provision that I could think of for the Entertainment of These Excellent Persons, and if the Tongue be the Key that Leads Us into all Knowledge, what could be more proper and suitable than a Feast of Tongues for a Philosophicall Banquet? ”

“ Loose your tongue at all times in gratitude for the blessings of the Beloved of the Worlds, for you are always mentioned in His Glorious and Sanctified Presence, and you are ever in the hearts of His maidservants. The pen is unable to describe the depths of our longing, nor can the tongue recount the love concealed within our hearts. Should you look into the mirror of your own heart, which is free from the defilements of this world of dust, you would clearly see the truth of what has been set forth. ”

“ In its capacity for the varied and exact expression of all moods of mind, all forms of thought, all kinds of emotion, a tongue unequaled by any other known to literature! A language of exhaustless variety; strong without ruggedness, and flexible without effeminacy. A manly tongue; yet bending itself gracefully and lovingly to the tenderest and the daintiest needs of woman, and capable of giving utterance to the most awful and impressive thoughts, in homely words that come from the lips, and go to the heart, of childhood. ”

“ Is it possible that, in the mesmeric trance, the mind in some cases rejects as artificial fabric all the educated conventionality of tongues, and resumes unconsciously the original and genuine dialect of the world? ”

“ Or again; could such a spectator, by dissecting the tongues of animals, have divined that the Tongue, in man, was to be the means of communicating the finest movements of thought and feeling; of giving one man, weak and feeble, an unbounded ascendency over robust and angry multitudes ”

“ The tongue is the mightiest instrument that God ever made. What is in thine hand? A kindly grasp? Give that to some sad, desponding soul. We need grit and grace to use the common things in the ordinary way in the daily occupations of life. ”

“ If your lips speak love, always pose your features to the natural language of the passion or sentiment. For the expression of feature, the soft and flowing modulations of tone, the mellow cadence and inflection of the voice, tells the immortal story of the heart quite as plainly, and far more eloquently, than can possibly any collocation of mere words, which any one can marshal to his or her aid; and soft and gentle tones will do more for errant, faulty husbands and wives than all the protestations or verbal storms that one could utter in a century! ”

“ Here we see that a well-governed spirit will govern the tongue. An unrestrained tongue is an evidence of levity, or of some worse quality in the heart. And if the spirit be faithful, the tongue will be cautious and friendly. The communication between the spirit and the tongue is so easy, that the one will certainly discover the quality of the other, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.—Lawson. ”

“ To reveal its complacence by gifts, seems to be one of the native dialects of love. ”

“ Who that can understand the wonderful structure of the tongue, and the complicated mechanism of the organs of speech and of hearing, could be found to take pleasure in the utterance of oaths, and of words of vulgar meaning? Were those beautiful cords that like threads of silk are woven into the muscular texture of the mouth, and along which the essence of life travels with the quickness of thought, to do the bidding of the will—were they given for no higher use than to sin against the God who gave them, and upon whose mercy their existence every moment depends? ”

“ Popular expressions in the language of civilised peoples, such as to have one's heart in one's mouth, or the soul on the lips or in the nose, show how natural is the idea that the life or soul may escape by the mouth or nostrils. ”

“ A good heart by the tongue becomes very useful. He that has knowledge is not only to enjoy it, for his own entertainment, but to use it, to use it aright, for the edification of others; and it is the tongue that must make use of it in pious profitable discourse, in giving suitable and seasonable instructions, counsels, and comforts, with all possible expressions of humility and love, and then knowledge is used aright ”

“ But how wise we must be before our tongue can fitly discharge this function! How humble must the heart be before it can instruct the tongue to speak at once with firmness and tenderness, without a touch of the Pharisee in its tone, to the erring brother or the offending stranger! A rebuke which springs not from love but from vanity, not from self-forgetfulness but from self-righteousness, will not be like an earring of gold, but rather like an ornament of miserable tinsel chafing the ear, the cause of gangrene, a disfigurement as well as an injury. ”

“ So when you do a kindly thing, be sure you hold your tongue.
Hold your tongue—hold your tongue: you'll ne'er be thought a dunce:
Hold your tongue and think twice before you loose it once:
Hold your tongue—for quiet folks are oft reputed wise:
Hold your tongue, but open wide your ears and your eyes.
Yes: hold your tongue, except in life when days of sorrow come;
Then speak to raise a drooping heart, or cheer a darksome home.
If none of these—let silence be the burden of your song:
He holds his own, nor hurts his friend, who learns to hold his tongue.
Hold your tongue—hold your tongue ”

“ Perhaps the last appearance of its special language was in an incident that has always seemed to me intensely impressive, and is at any rate very illustrative of the great manner and gesture of which I speak. Impressions of that kind are a matter of imagination and in that sense of taste. It is idle to argue about them; for it is the whole point of them that they have passed beyond words; and even when they use words, seem to be completed by some ritual movement like a blessing or a blow. ”

“ On the use of the tongue depend the issues of a man's own life. It may be regarded as a tree which bears fruits of different kinds, and such fruits as his tongue bears a man must eat. If his words have been good, then he shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth. [281] "A man's belly shall be filled with the fruit of his mouth, with the increase of his lips shall he be satisfied." [282] The fruits which grow on this tongue-tree are death and life—the tongue produces them—and he that loves the tree shall according to his love eat the one fruit or the other ”

“ There is an Eastern legend of a powerful genii, who promised a beautiful maiden a gift of rare value if she would pass through a field of corn and, without pausing, going backward, or wandering hither and thither, select the largest and ripest ear,—the value of the gift to be in proportion to the size and perfection of the ear she should choose. ”

“ We are constantly reminded, in endless, almost wearisome, imagery, of gold and purple, foreign languages, esoteric philosophies, foods the names of which [Pg 53] strike the ear as graciously as they themselves might strike the tongue. ”

“ Should my bodily tongue ever attempt to describe Thee as the One Whose strength hath ever excelled the strength of the most mighty amongst men, the tongue of my heart would address me, saying: “These are but words which can only be adequate to such things as are of the same likeness and nature as themselves. But He, of a truth, is infinitely exalted above the mention of all His creatures.” ”

“ He has a wonderful relish for light literature, and affects to speak numerous tongues. In truth, if there be a tongue he is not familiar with, he will tell you most patronizingly that it is a tongue not known in fashionable society. ”

“ When addressed in a foreign tongue, we hear a number of articulated sounds, to which we can attach no meaning; they convey nothing to the mind, make no impression upon the in-dwelling soul. When those sounds are interpreted to us, in a language that we can understand, they impart impressions of joy, hope, surprise, or sorrow, because the words convey to us a meaning. In like manner, if we fail to understand Nature, its beauties, its teachings are lost. ”

“ Now, the tongue is thus important because it is so prompt and willing a servant of the mind within. We scarcely think of it as a servant at all: our words do not seem to be more than “expressions,” manifestations of what is within us. ”