; and such, too, as are influenced by your libellous reports.
It is a shame, Mr. Webster, that you, a man who pretends to membership
in a Christian Church, should be guilty of believing malicious reports
respecting a Christian minister, and more particularly that you should
spread them abroad in the very neighbourhood where he labours. This is a
conduct far beneath a man of honour, of charity, and self-respect."

"Are you intending this lecture for me, Mr. Watson?" asked Webster,
rather petulantly.

"I am, sir: and you deserve it, in much stronger language than I can
use. You have been the means of blackening Mr. Good's character in this
place, when it was all clean and unimpeachable. You have been the means
of weakening his influence in the pulpit, and out of the pulpit. You
have injured him, injured his wife and family; and the good man, through
you, has been obliged to give in his resignation as our pastor."

"Through me, do you say, Mr. Watson?"

"Yes, sir, through you."

"How can that be?"

"It was you who brought the scandal into the neighbourhood: who told it
to Newsman and Reporter and everybody you met with, until your scandal
grew as mushrooms in every family of the congregation. It became the
talk of all. Many kept from church. They suspected Mr. Good: more than
this, they accused him in their conversation of many things inconsistent
with a minister; and how could they receive benefit from his preaching,
even if they went to hear him? Yes, sir, you have been the cause of the
'fine times,' as you call them, in our Church, and not Mr. Good."

"I am sorry for it."

"Well, sir, if you are sorry for it, repent of it; forsake the evil of
your doing. Give up the itching you have for scandal. Do not repeat
things upon mere rumour; you have done more injury in this one case than
you will do good if you live to be a hundred years old. Remember, Mr.
Webster, what the Wise Man says, "He that uttereth slander is a fool."

Mr. Webster shrunk away from Mr. Watson as one condemned in his own
conscience. He evidently felt the keen remarks thus made; and I hope he
became a reformed man in this regard, during his future life.

VI.

_THE PLEONAST._

"This barren verbiage current among men."--TENNYSON.

The habit of this talker is to encumber his ideas with such a plethora
of words as frequently prove fatal to their sense. Some of this class
employ fine words because they are fine, with perfect indiffe