The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1899-07-08

| Peddlers OF night shade! PeddlerS or
Canada thistle! Pedders of nux yom-
lea! Sometimes they get you in cor
ner where you cannot very well escape
without being rude, and then they tell
you all about this one. and all about
that one, and all about the other one,
and they talk, talk, talk, talk, talk talk.
After awhile they go away, leaving the
place looking like n barnyard after the
foxes and the weasels have been around;
here wing, and there claw, and yon-
! der an eye, and there crop. How they
do make the feathers fly!
Rather than the defamtion of good
| names it seems to me il would be almost
as honorable and useful il you just took
a box of matches in your pocket and
razor in your hand and go through the
streets and see how many houses you
can burn down and how many throats
you can cut. That is not much worse
business. The destruction of n mans
name is worse than the destruction of
his life A woman came in confessional
to a priest and told him that she mad
been slandering her neighbors. The
| priest promised her absolution on con-
dition of her performing penance. He
gave her thistle top and said: You
can take that thistle and scatter the
seeds all over the field" She went and
| did so and came back. Now" said the
| priest, gather up all those seeds" She
said: 81 can't" "Ah," he said, 81 know
you can't. Neither can you gather up
the evil words you spoke about your
| 4 Il oil
women have sometimes had detractors
after them. John Wesley's wife whis-
pered about him, whispered all over
England, kept on whispering about
that good man-as good Il man as ever
lived-and kept on whispering until the
connubial relation was dissolved.
Jesus Christ had these whisperers
after Him, and they charged Him with
drinking too much and keeping bad
company. "A wine bibber and the
friend of publicans and sinners" You
take the best man that ever lived and
put detective on his track for ten
years, watching where he goes and
when he comes and with determine
ton to misconstrue everything and to
| think he goes here for Il bad purpose
and there for a bad purpose, with that
| determination of destroying him, at the
end of the ten years he will be held de-
| spicable in the sight of great many
| people
| If it is an outrageous thing to- despoil
n mans character, how much worse is it
to damage a woman's reputation? Yet
| that evil grows from century to CEN
] "a, T.. al L., I,,.. Ii 4
suspicion is started. The next whis-
| perez who gets hold of il states the sus-
pcion as proven fact, and many good
woman. AS honorable as your wife or
| your mother, has been whispered out Of
all kindly associations, and whispered
| into the grave. Some people say there
| is no hell, but if there be no hell for such
a despoiler of womanly character 1t is
| high time that some philanthropist
| build one. But there is such place es-
| tablshed, and what a time they will
| have when all the whisperers get down
| there together rehearsing things!
Everlasting carnival of mud. Were it
| not for the uncomfortable surroundings
| you might suppose they would be glad
| to get there. In that region where they
| are all bad what opportunities for en-
| ploitation by these whispercrs. On
earth, to despoil their neighbors some
times they had to lie about them, but
down there they can say the worst
things possible about their neighbors
and tell the truth. Jubilee of whisper
ers. Semiheaven of scandal mongers
stopping their gable about their dia-
bolcal neighbors only long enough to
go up to the iron gate and ask some new
conner from the earth: What is the
last gossip in the city on earth where we
used to live?"
Now, how are we to war against this
iniquity which curses every community
on earth? First, by refusing to listen
to or believe n whisper. Every court OF
the land has for n law and all decent
communities have for law that you
must hold people innocent until they
are proved guilty. There is only one
person worse than the whisperer, and
that is the man or woman who listens
without protest. The trouble is. you
hold the sack while they fill it. The re-
ceiver of the stolen goods is just as
bad as the thief. An ancient writer de
clareS that Il Slanuefef ana man WHO
receives the SANDER ought both to be
hanged-the one by the tongue and the
other by the ear-and ] agree with
him.
When you hear something bad about
your neighbors, do not go all over ard
ask about it, whether it is true, and
scatter it and spread ii. You might ms
well go to smallpox hospital and take
patient and carry him all through the |
community, asking people If they really
thought il Il case Of smallpox. That
would be very bad for the patient and
for all the ncighbors. Do not retail SIAN
ders and whisperings. DO not make !
yourself the Inspector Of warts, and the
supervisor OF carbuncles, and the COM
missioner for street cutters, and the
holder Of stakes for dog fight. Can il
be that you, an immortal man; that
you. an immortal woman, can find no
better business than TO become a gut
ter inspector?
Beside that. at your family table al
i