And, like all that most practical apostle's counsels,
that is a most impressive and memorable commandment. For, it is well
known that all sane men who either ride on or drive unruly horses, take
good care to bridle their horses well before they bring them out of their
stable door. And then they keep their bridle-hand firm closed on the
bridle-rein till their horses are back in the stable again. Especially
and particularly they keep a close eye and a firm hand on their horse's
bridle on all steep inclines and at all sharp angles and sudden turns in
the road; when sudden trains are passing and when stray dogs are barking.
If the rider or the driver of a horse did not look at nothing else but
the bridle of his horse, both he and his horse under him would soon be in
the ditch,--as so many of us are at the present moment because we have an
untamed tongue in our mouth on which we have not yet begun to put the
bridle of truth and justice and brotherly love. Indeed, such woe and
misery has an untamed tongue wrought in other churches and in other and
more serious ages than ours, that special religious brotherhoods have
been banded together just on the special and strict engagement that they
would above all things put a bridle on their tongues.
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