“Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad” (Prov. 12:25). We never know how many stooping hearts we meet from day to day, heavy with sorrow, weighted down with difficulties, perplexed by unsolved and seemingly insoluble problems. We must, of course, be walking in close fellowship with the Lord in order to know how to speak “a good word” at the right time, and thus be able to say that “the Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned” (Isa. 50:4). So we are told to “let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” Thus shall we be able to speak “a good word” to make someone’s heart glad. And not only will it bless others — it will also bring blessing to us as we speak the “good word,” for “a man hath joy by the answer of his mouth: and a word spoken in due season, how good is it!” So “let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.” “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty,” the Word of God. J. M. Marchbanks