El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-04-22
The EVIL
OF GOSSIP
SANDERS To Be Dreaded More
Than the Plague.
SIN OF SCANDAL COM MON
A Scandal MOng ar Is Minister Of Sa-
tan.-By Direct Accusation Or By
Hint And InnuendO They Impute
Wrong Doing To the Innocent.
Written for the Herald.

Written for the Herald.
OF all the evils of this life, there
appear to be few so great, and SO
much to be stunned, as that of gossip,
inasmuch as the effects of it are SO wide
spread, and disastrous to society in
general and to individuals in parti-
oular.
The love of talk, regardless of the
feelings of others, also seems to be q
growing evil, aud woe to those who
come under the displeasure of the per-
sops who allow resentment to get the
upper hand of prudence and Christiani-
ty. There are others, again, who do
not require "a stimulating cause to open
the Walls of wrath against the unohend-
ing. 1t is only sufficient for them to be
jealous of an individual, or even to
have given a person cause to be dis
pleased with them for remarks made,
ETC., for the offending party to seem to
take an unaccOunta BILE dislike to the
innocent victim. A person would ma
tura]ly suppose the reverse; but it
seems not in many cases.
Gossips and scandal mongers are
more to be dreaded in society than the
plague, or some contagious disease.
Everything is contaminated that comes
within the pestiferous breath Of their
evil presence. They are so much in
fated with their own opinion of them.
selves, that they can see nothing good,
pure, o. worthy Of esteem Ia DINERS.
The whitening breath OF gossip and
scandal has caused the destruction of
of love, which promised future as
enduring and as stable as truth. They
evaporate and turn to life of sorrow
and misery.
Great crimes work great wrongs, and
the'deeper tragedies of human life
spring from the larger passions; but
wOful and most mournful are the uncat-
alogued tragedies that ensue from gos-
sip. 9detraction, and scandal.
The sin of scandal is very common.
We find it whithersoever way We turn.
1t is SO common and so destructive in
its consequences that we may apply to
those who are guilty of scandal the
words of the Prophet Micheas:
They all lie in wait for blood;
everyone huntetb his brother to
DEAN" mich. VII. 2O)
may be measured by these words of
our Lord: "Woe to the world because
of scandals; for it must needs be that
scandals come, but, nevertheless, woe
to that man by whom the scandal
cometh." Matt. XVIII. ~
Slanderers may be classified as those
who impute guilt to person, knowing
Inc same TO De 1alse: others by stretch
of the imagination exaggerate trifes
into immensities: again. those who,
cOgnizant of some secret sin, of anoth-
er known to themselves alone, publish
this knowledge to the world and often
magnify the same: another class pre-
tend to discover the secret motives of
their fellowmsn and construe his &C
tions wrongfully and with malice.
These are sins against the eighth COM
mandment, against justice and charity,
and will carry a terrible reckoning
with them some day.
II is not necessary for the purpose
that direct accu= ations be uttered; it
suffices that statement or remark
be Clothed with ambiguity or accom-
panied with cbsracte ristic wink, q
shrug, or with innuends that leads
the nearer to coustrue the matter i q a
two fold manner.
The direct slanderer, the insinuator,
the violator OF secrets and those who
Ike um bragg at the religious fervor
OF others, mo find fault with one who
attends to his duties as Christian,
by his devotion to his church, and so
o.. aud style such bypocrites and
mi-construe their actions and motives
these all manifest their disgusting,
and, IN fact, their cannibalistic in
stircts in a still more glaring light
v ben actuated by diabolical desire
TO impugn the actions and motives of
their own pastors. In some cases
every movement and word of the pas