The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1868-06-20
SInn,scrers ami Slmndcriuc.

Character is what man essentially is. Rep.
utation is what the world thinks he is Social
positions may make or unmake regulations for
the passing hour But neither can touch charac-
ter: that pertains more to the innernost, bears
Gods seal.
There are three ways to put slanderers down;
One is, to knock them down. This is the pugil-
lists method aud its brevity corresponds with
the general non-responsibility of mischief.makers
and defamerS. Another method is to "law them"
down in courts of justice. This, though some
times tedious, is often UNSUITABLE process A
third and better, is to ice them down. Each
true, moral upright person in community, holds
every insinuating coward that prowls along the
lowers shelves of society, at fearful disadvantage
For though blow may meet blow, and argument
argument, in the hands OF attorneys, those who
put their blows and arguments into true lfe
and strive to overcome evil with good, are in
vincble.
Henry Ward Beccher says in his own mimi
table style: Life would be perpetual fea-hunt
if one were obliged to run down all the inuen-
does the inveracties, the nsinuations and the
suspicious which are uttered against him y
When the absent are spoken of, some will speak
gold, some silver, some iron some lead, and
some always speak dirt, for they have natural
attraction for what is evil. They mouse for de-
fects as cats watch for mice. u
God has appointed certain insects, buzzards and
beasts to be destroyers. Consuming decayine
mattervthey feast on filth To their palate, life
is insipid-death hss flavor
The Rev. DIR. Chaplin, in his earlier life, feel
ing the shafts of the envous, anxious to pull
him down to their level, said Islander has
crushed a thousand hopes and stung to the very
earth many fair and spotless reputation
They must be ,feac who can take reputation
that has walked among men respected and es-
teemed, and breathe upon it till it withers
Slander begins with vague significant surmises
and small broken hints. Itcontinues with whis-
pers and malicious menaccs worse than DEATH
till it shadows and beclouds the brightest char
acter like breath upon a looking-glass."
The poet Pollock said the slanderer was the
'foulest whelp OF sin with tongue set on the
fire of hell, and whose legs are faint with haste
to propagate the lie his soul had framed
These defamers, censurers, tale-bearers, are
the moral vipers of society, leaving Shiny trail
in their wake. Like the tarantuas of Califor-
MIA, they weave threads of candor into webs of
wiles, and SmNe while they breathe out their
poisoned utterances; and yet such is the divine
law of compensation, that in the end they die
from sef-poisoning.
jesus, while teaching and healing in Judea,
was man Of bad-ge'y bad reputation among
the sleek, lawn-sleeved, prayertul Pharisees.
Saying nothing o. such minor offences with
which he was accused as being "wine-bibber,'
eating with 'publcans and sinners" and reeog-
nitions of Mary Magdalen' and the "woman by
Samarias well'-these were the legal charges
brought against him:
|. Jesus is a seducer.
H. He il seditious.
Ill. lie is an enemy to the law.
~. lie calls himself falsely the son of God.
V. He calls himself falsely the King of Is
rael.
VI He entered into the temple followed by a
multitude bearing palm branches in their hands.
These satisfactorily proven, Pontius PLATE act.
ing Governor of Lower Galilee, pronounced the
sentence that Jesus should suffer death upon
the cross. And yet Jesus lives to-day fresh in
humanity's great heart.
In the higher better sense, it is rather com.
pliinent tnan otherwise, to be prosecuted and
slandered by those who cherish personal piques,
or by such envious, jealous, suspicious souls, as
ieei inclined to make their superiors seem as vic
ious as THEY really are "Woe unto YOU" said
Jesus to his deciples, when all men speak well
OF YOU "Blame is safer than praise" says r.
w. Emerson. "A great man is always willing
to be misunderstood. Were he to sit in cMsh.
ion of ease he would sleep; but when belied,
pushed. tormenteo, defeated, he has chance to
learn something. He is put on his wits, and
puts on Il more sterling manhood And then,
besides getting cured of seli-conceit learns self
holy,