estitute by
his removal. One must be blind indeed not to see that all these losses
are laid at the door of the criminal, a direct result of his crime,
foreseen, too, at least confusedly, since there is a moral fault; and
these must be made good, as far as the thing is possible, otherwise the
sin will not be forgiven.

Slander must be retracted. If you have lied about another and thereby
done him an injury, you are bound in conscience to correct your false
statement, to correct it in such a manner as to undeceive all whom you
may have misled. This retraction must really retract, and not do just
the contrary, make the last state of things worse than the first, which
is sometimes the case. Prudence and tact should suggest means to do
this effectively: when, how and to what extent it should be done, in
order that the best results of reparation may be obtained. But in one
way or another, justice demands that the slanderer contradict his lying
imputations and remove by so doing the stain that besmirches the
character of his victim.

Of course, if it was by truth and not falsehood, by detraction and not
calumny, that you assailed and injured the reputation of another, there
is no gainsaying the truth; you are not justified in lying in order to
make truth less damaging. The harm done here is well nigh irreparable.
But there is such a thing as trying to counteract the influence of evil
speech by good words, by mentioning qualities that offset defects, by
setting merit against demerit; by attenuating as far as truth will
allow the circumstances of the case, etc. This will place your victim
in the least unfavorable light, and will, in some measure, repair the
evil of detraction.

Scandal must be repaired, a mightily difficult task; to reclaim a soul
lost to evil through fatal inducements to sin is paramount, almost, to
raising from the dead. It is hard, desperately hard, to have yourself
accepted as an angel of light by those for whom you have long been a
demon of iniquity. Good example! Yes, that is about the only argument
you have. You are handicapped, but if you wield that argument for good
with as much strength and intensity as you did for evil, you will have
done all that can be expected of you, and something may come of it.

The wrong of bodily contamination is a deep one. It is a wrong, and
therefore unjust, when it is effected through undue influence that
either annuls consent, or wrings it from the victim by cajolery,