behind
to work and rankle, to fever human existence, and to poison human
society at the fountain springs of life."

Glance at the _evil effects_ of slander. Beauty is defaced, goodness is
abused, innocence is corrupted, justice is dethroned, truth is denied
and violated. Motives are impugned, and purposes misinterpreted. Sacred
principles are treated with scorn, and honourable actions are slimed
over with disgrace. The minister is falsely represented to his people,
and the people to their minister. Church persecutes Church, and
Christian maligns Christian. Ill feelings are created between master and
servant. Friend is separated from friend. Neighbour is set against
neighbour. Business men are thrown into mutual antagonism. Whole
families are excited to animosities and strifes. Churches are raised
into ferment and divisions. Political parties are brought into rivalry
and contention. The passions are kindled into fury, and blood for blood,
tooth for tooth, eye for eye, are the precepts of mutual action. Fame is
arrested in its course and turned backwards. Honour is thrown into the
dust. Worth is cast into the streets; usefulness is perverted into
mischievousness. Noble aspiration is said to be selfishness. Whatever
slander touches, it leaves upon it the slimy trail of the old serpent,
and infuses its poisonous venom; and were it not for the angel of truth
which destroys both, irretrievable ruin would be the consequence.

"The tongue of the slanderer," says Massillon, "is a devouring fire,
which tarnishes whatever it touches; which exercises its fury on the
good grain equally as on the chaff, on the profane as on the sacred;
which, wherever it passes, leaves only desolation and ruin; digs even
into the bowels of the earth, and fixes itself on things the most
hidden; turns into vile ashes what only a moment before had appeared to
us so precious and brilliant; acts with more violence and danger than
ever, in the time when it was apparently smothered up and almost
extinct; which blackens what it cannot consume, and sometimes sparkles
and delights before it destroys."

"He that uttereth slander is a fool," says the Wise Man. "He is a fool,"
remarks Dr. Barrow, "because he maketh wrong judgments and valuations of
things, and accordingly driveth on silly bargains for himself, in result
whereof he proveth a great loser." His "whole body is defiled" by it,
says the Apostle. As a Christian he is enfeebled in his spiritual
stren