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There is a proverb which says, Speech is silvern, silence is golden. Like all proverbs, this admits of qualification. There is a silence that means cowardice, sulkiness, and stupidity; and there is a speech that is more precious than any gold, triumphant over error and wrong, quickening and beneficent as the sunbeam. Notice two or three kinds of silences.

I. There is the silence of EMOTIONAL FULNESS. It is a physiological fact that great emotions choke the utterance.

1. Great painful emotions do this (Matthew 22:12). Will not all the wicked who stand at the bar of their Maker at the last day be struck with this silence? Emotions of surprise, remorse, despair, will rush with such tumultuousness upon them as to paralyze all articulating power.

2. Great joyous emotions do this. When the father embraced his prodigal son, his heart was so full of joyous feelings that he could not speak. It has been said that superficial emotions chatter, deep emotions are mute: there are joys that are unutterable.

II. There is the silence of Pious RESIGNATION. It is said that Aaron held his peace, and the psalmist said, "I was dumb and opened not my mouth because Thou didst it." This indeed is a golden silence: it implies unbounded confidence in the character and procedure of our Heavenly Father. It is a loving, loyal acquiescence in the will of Him who is all-loving, all-wise, and all-good. This silence reveals —

1. The highest reason. Is there a sublimer philosophy than this?

2. The highest faith. Faith in the immutable realities of love and right.

III. There is the silence of HOLY SELF-RESPECT. This was the silence which Christ displayed before His judges. He seemed to feel that to speak to such virulently prejudiced creatures would be a degradation. The man who can stand and listen to the language of stolid ignorance, venomous bigotry, and personal insult addressed to him in an offensive spirit, and offer no reply, exerts a far greater power upon the minds of his assailants than he could by words, however forceful. His silence reflects a moral majesty, before which the heart of his assailants will scarcely fail to cower.

(Homilist.)

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KJV: A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

WEB: a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;