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Updated: June 9, 2025
They will begin, perhaps, with by-words and little oaths, which show a disposition to be profane, without courage to carry it out. But they will not long stop here. They will soon overcome the chidings of conscience, and then they can be as foul-mouthed as any of their companions. This vice hardens the heart, and prepares it for every other; for he who despises God will despise man.
Half the young men in London, whose names are by-words, are intensely and hopelessly virtuous. They know it, and that is why they look so pale. The consciousness of virtue is a terrible thing, is it not, Mr. Smith?" "I am afraid I hardly caught what you were saying. No pudding, thank you," said that gentleman. "I was saying that we moderns are really all much better than we seem.
After all, he deemed faith a very good thing for a woman; unbelief, like smoking and occasional by-words, was appropriate only to the coarser sex. "Well," he replied evasively, "the Bible stands on a very different ground. We couldn't examine the ancient miracles just as we do modern faith-cures if we wished.
Some people have pretended that there is a limit to human degradation; but there is always a lower depth and a still lower depth. Not death itself limits this sort of degradation the tomb of the unfortunate Morocco Jew is defiled and his name and faith furnishes, unendingly, the "by-words" of the curse of the Moor!
The gods have fled, but man is here. Nations, like individuals, have their periods of youth, of manhood and decay. Religions are the same. The same inexorable destiny awaits them all. The gods created with the nations must perish with their creators. They were created by men, and, like men, they must pass away. The deities of one age are the by-words of the next.
Others have blasphemed in senatorial places, pretending afterwards that it was a mere rhetorical flourish. Many fall into this habit through the frequent use of what are called by-words. I suppose that all have favorite phrases of this kind in which there is no harm; but a profusion of this style of speech often ends in bald profanity. It is, "I declare!" "My stars!" "Mercy on me!"
Profaneness. Perhaps there is no bad company to which boys are more exposed than the profane; and none which is more corrupting. Young people insensibly fall into the habits of those with whom they associate. If they hear them interlard their conversation with by-words and oaths, they will be strongly tempted to do the same.
Indeed, "Sunday headaches," and "Sunday temper," were by-words in the house, and, as a child once expressed it, "everybody's cross on Sunday."
He drew a black bottle down the counter, and, laying half his length upon the damp board, continued: "As a p'inciple I discredits de imbimin' of awjus liquors. De imbimin' of awjus liquors, de wiolution of de Sabbaf, de playin' of de fiddle, and de usin' of by-words, dey is de fo' sins of de conscience; an' if any man sin de fo' sins of de conscience, de debble done sharp his fork fo' dat man.
He had likewise taken a position, and had been the first to laugh aloud at a particular slip of grammar; while his shrugs at the aspirates transposed and the pronunciation prevalent, had almost established a free-masonry between him and one of the three young gentlemen-cricketers-a fair-haired youth, with a handsome, reckless face, who leaned on the table, humorously eyeing the several speakers, and exchanging by-words and laughs with his friends on each side of him.
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