Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1885-08-20
&eadina fpr THE Sabbath.
CONDUCTED BY
REV. ROBERT LATHAM.
[ fOriginal.]
BACKBITERS.

In every community there is class of in
dividuals who may be Scripturally called
"backbiters." The English word backbite
describes the habit of species of the dog
family. This peculiar kind of dog is re-
markable for but one thing, and that is the
mean and cowardly practice of slipping up
behind an individual, biting him and then
running under the house, or into some place
of protection. AS watch dog the creature
is worthless, and ithas no value as hunter.
| It is the meanest of the dog family and a
disgrace to the noble animal whose name it
bears.
In society, there is class of individuals
who imp the cowardly actions of this in
famous ''fice." They backbte their neigh
bors, not with their teeth as the dog does,
but with their tongues. They are not liars
in that they tell falsehoods without the
shadow of a foundation. They, in the Ian
guage of the Scriptures, "take up reproach-
es against their neighbors." Oftheir neigh
bors they have nothing good to say, but
say a great deal that is evil. They have a
knowledge of all the wrong doings OF their
acquaintance and publish them far and
wide, but are as mute as stone as to any
and all good that their acquaintance nave
done or are doing. They have much evil
to say about everybody and no good to say
about any one.
The striking characteristic of these back
biters is, that they always talk about per-
sons and not about things. No man or Wo-
man escapes them. In some way or other,
they learn something that every individual
has done or said, which is wrong, and this
wrong doing or saying is made the sole
theme of their conversation. They have
always something bad to tell about some
one-something they saw or heard, or some
thing that some One-but they nave 1Orgot-
ten Who-told them.
The habit of back biting is one that is east
ly contracted, but it should be carefully
avoided. While falsehood is never to be
told, it would be wrong to tell the whole
truth about any man or woman. There is
not man or woman, living or dead, of any
worth to society, whose characters is beyond
reproach. We all sin. We violate both
tables of the moral law every day. We sin
against God, and we sin against our fellow
man. The truth is not to be told at all
times. TO do so would be backbiting. 1t
would have direct tendency to throw So
ciety into worse than anarchy and confu-
sion. It would convert it into little per-
dition.
It would be we'll for us when we are re-
porting the wrong doings of others if we
would take our own case into consideration.
Our Saviour said to a self-conceited crowd
of tell.tale Scribes and Pharisees, who had
brought into his presence an infamous wo-
man, "He that is without sin among you,
let him first cast stone at her." The words
of the Saviour went like barbed arrow to
their souls. Their own consciences convict
ed them, and they skulked away, and the
poor woman was left alone with Jesus
Whata lesson to backbiters! What lesson
to everybody, for we are all addicted to
backbiting.
There is an old saying to this import: IF
you can say nothing good about the dead,
say nothing" The dead cannot defend
themselves, hence nothing bad must be said
about them. So far as the backbiter is con-
cerned, the living are dead. They are una
BILE to defend themselves. Backbiters are
deadly foes, but not open enemies. Unseen
they bite. ''The tongue is little member,
and boasteth great things. Behold, how
much wood is kindled by how small fire:
And the tongue is fire: the world of in
iquity among our mem bers is our tongue,
which defileth the whole body, and setteth
on fire the wheel of nature, and is set on
fire by hell"