The show of piety James opposes in all its forms. Such is that pious cant, in which, along with praise to God in words, are mingled a hateful censoriousness and bitter denunciation of men, in whom God's image is to be honored. James exposes the inherent inconsistency of such conduct, which to his view is mere hypocrisy. "Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can. the fig-tree, my brethren, bear olive berries, either a vine figs? So can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh." Thus does James express the ground-thought of this whole Epistle, viz. that all turns on the inward temper from which the whole life takes its direction; and nothing could be more remote from that tendency, opposed by him at all points, which confines its regard to the merely external, to single acts and empty show.