Friendly counsels for freedmen

Chapter 8: SWEARING.

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About This Book

A minister offers practical and moral guidance to recently emancipated people, welcoming their freedom while warning that liberty brings new responsibilities. He encourages gratitude and industry, urging recipients to seek honest labor even at low pay, accept temporary government aid but aim for self-reliance, and use savings to guard against future need. The pamphlet stresses personal habits—cleanliness, economy, sobriety—and insistence on honesty, truthfulness, and avoidance of stealing, lying, and profane swearing. Moral instruction is grounded in Scripture and framed to help families secure stable, respectable livelihoods.

SWEARING.

Perhaps you are not a profane swearer. We hardly think swearing is as common among the blacks as it is among the whites: to the shame of the whites be it said. Yet we have heard some shocking oaths from colored men and women. This wicked habit the Bible condemns. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” “Swear not at all,” said Jesus. If any of you have fallen into this dreadful habit, break it off, stop it at once. And if you have not, then guard against it.