St. Tammany farmer., 1901-08-24
THE EVILS OF GOSSIP
A Sermon to Those Who Are Dis
posed to Talk Too Much.

VI Or. 1almage ON the Text
"Dtscover Not a Secret to An
other"-Geod and Bad Sc
cret Societies.
tcpoyright, 1901, by Louis Klopsch. N. ~
Washington,
A practical question which is asked
In most houses, and for many years
Is here asked by DIR. Talmage and
answered; text, Proverbs 25:9, 'Dis.
cover not secret to another"
1t appears that in Solomon's time
as in all subsequent periods of the
world, there were people too much
disposed to tell all they knew. 1t
was blab, blab, blab; physicians re-
vealing the case of their patients,
lawyers exposing the private affairs
OF their clients; neighbors advertis-
ing the faults Of the next-door resi-
dent; pretended friends betraying
condolences.
One-half of the trouble of every
community comes from the fact that
80 many people have not capacity to
something disparaging of you, my
first duty is not to tell you, but if l
tell you what somebody has said
against you and then go out and
tell others what 1 told them that
told you, and we all go out, some to
hunt up the originator of the story
and others to hunt it down, we shall
get the whole community talking
about what you did do and what you
did not do, and there will be as many
scalps taken as though a band of
Modocs had swept upon a helpless
village. We have two ears, but only
one tongue, physiological sugges-
ton, that we ought to hear a good
deal more than we tell. Let us join
conspiracy that we will tell each
other all the good and nothing of the
i'll, and then there will not be such
awful need of sermons on Sclomon's
words: Discover not a secret to
another"
Solomon had very large domestic
circle. In his earlier days he had
very confused notions about monog-
amy and polygamy, and his multi
tudinous associates in the matri-
monial state kept him too well in
formed as to what was going on in
Jerusalem. They gathered up all the
privacies and poured them into his
ear, and his family became a sorosis
or female debating society of 700,
discussing day after day all the diff
culties between husbands and wives,
between employers and employees,
between ruler and subjects, until
Solomon, in my text, deplores volu-
bility about affairs that do not be-
long to us and extols the virtue of
secretiveness.
By the power of a secret divulged
families, churches, neighborhoods,
nations. fly apart. By the power of
q secret kept great charities, social
tiles, reformatory movements and
Christian enterprises may be adj
vanced. Men are gregarious-catt1e
in herds, fish in schools, birds in
focks, men in social circles. You
may by the discharge of gun scat
ter flock of quails or by the plunge
of the anchor send apart the deni
zens of the sea, but they will gather
themselves together again. If you
by some new power could break the
they would again adhere: God
meant it SO. He has gathered all the
flowers and shrubs into associations.
You may plant one forgetmenot or
heartsease alone, away off upon the
hillside, but it will soon hunt up
some other forgetmenot or hearts
ease. Plants love company. You
will find them talking to each other
in the dew.
You sometimes see man with no
outbranchings of sympathy. His ma
ture is cold and hard, like ships
mast ice glazed, which.the most agile
sailor could never climb. Others
have a thousand roots. and a thou
sand branches. Innumerable tendrils
climb their hearts and blossom all
the way up, and the fowls of heaven
sing in the branches. In consequence
of this tendency we find men coming
together in tribes, in communities. in
churches, in societies. Some gather
together to cultivate the arts, some
to plan for the welfare of the state,
some to discuss religious themes,
some to kindle their mirth, some to
advance their craft. So every active
community is divided into associa-
tions of artists, of merchants, of
bookbinders, of carpenters, Of
masons, Of plasterers, of shipwrights,
of plumbers. Do you cry out against
it? Then you cry out against a ten
dency divinely implanted. Your
TRADES would accomplish no more
than if you should preach to a busy
ant hill long sermon against Sc
cret societies.
Here we find the oft discussed
question whether associations that
do their work with closed doors and
admit their members by passwords
and greet each other with a secret
grip are right or wrong. l answer
that it depends entirely on the ma
%rra of tho object for which thew