“So they gave it to me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.” Ex. 32:24.
Henry Venn Elliott, the pious Brighton minister, writes thus in late life: “If there is one point more than another in morality concerning which I have been especially watchful in my own words, and earnest in teaching my children, it has been strict truth, even to the banishment of ordinary exaggerations.” If a child had made some trifling mistake, and said, “I am so very sorry,” he would say, “Keep your sorrow, my child, for a greater occasion.” He used to refer to Adam’s self-justification, “The woman gave unto me”; to Aaron’s, “There came out this calf”; to Saul’s, “The people took of the spoil”; as compared with David’s earnest ingenuous “I have sinned against the Lord.”
May our young readers ponder well the thought given by Mr. Elliott, not forgetting the solemn words spoken by our Lord in Matthew 12:37, “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”
“Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips” (Psa. 141:3).