Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1914-06-09
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 currence was deplorable for the poo
 depositors, far more than for tn,
 bank, which successfully weatheret
 the run, without needing any outside help in the end.
 What caused all this fright and | trouble and misery? The reporters got to work on the question on one side. and the bank officials on the other. There must have been some thing, for bank runs, like everything else, must have a cause, however mistaken. It was not long before the cause. in this case, was discovered.
 Two young girls were employed to sweep and scrub and work about the . bank. There was some adjustment of the money in the vaults, because one vault was being enlarged and repair ed. The girls did not understand at all what was being done. They had no money whatever in the bank, and knew none of the depositors. But they talked to their friends about the bank. and how something queer was being done there, and they couldn't understand what was being done to the money, and perhaps it wasn't all right. Out of nothing whatever they built up pieces of slanderous gos- sip that spread like fire. A depositor heard it. He went and drew out his money and told others they would better. do the same. After that, a run on the bank was only a question of a fov nd hn protested that things were all right, the more the ignorant, suspicious de- positcrs were sure it must be all wrong. Y,
 The two girls were frightened at what they had done. They kept quiet. They had not meant to cause all this trouble and misery. But they did cause it just the same. They could not stop it, once they had started it. The bank could and did them, but that did not help the two poor old women who were robbed of all they had il the world. No punishment that the two sland- erers could have received would have helped any of their victims. That is the cowardly part of slander-that it harms and destroys, and yet the slanderers themselves are not injur- ed.
 Why should those two young wom- en have started this ugly lie? It did no good to them, was not to their ad- vantage, and did not even satisfy a grudge, for they had none against their employers. The "why" seems mystery. Yet is not almost all slam derous gossip just as motiveless |? Sins of the ongue, real and danger ous as they are, often have no reason behind them but that of a miserable habD of evil talk. They are sins of mean mind. expressing itself daily In careless. unkind, unfounded in- situations.
 That makes them all the worse. To some sins there are strong temp tations. There is a reason and often powerful reason, why they attack the soul in fOrce.. But gossip and evil speaking have no such excuse. There is no profit, no advantage in them. Why should any man or wom- an admit them into the heart and the life. to befould all about them, and cause nothing but trouble and danger?
 The answer is, in most cases habit; just habit formed in youth. Young people start out by talkins carelessly. They think it makes them seem clever to criticize and to in- sinute. Then some of them grow to like the flavor of gossip in their talk and then. usually, the mischief is uone. In every community, group Of young people are growing m whose tongues are going to be the curse of that community, hringine untold misery to scores or even hundreds of persons later on. "The tongue is fire" says the apostle James. "The world of inquity amons our members is the tongue. which defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the wheel of nature, and 1t is Set on fire by hell"
 strong words, but not too strong N one follows the history of an, islander. James was a most practica christian. direct, simple and there lore weighty. If these two girls ir the bank had known their Bible. ant followed it's teachings, they would never have done the mischief the, dld. But regres does not take bacl spoken words. The thing to do i. to restrain them beforehand; and tn, thlrd chapter of James, learned h, heart. would be strong Safeguard TOT many young souls now in peri of the sins of the tongue.
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 THE PURLI C'S ATTITUDE
 TOW ARn HIS nuN c.,,,,,.