Year: 1869




culiarities in the vice of calumny. In
the first place, considering the mis-
chief it does, there is very little pun.
ishment to the person practising it
Personal vices are dearly paid for
even in this world; and most of us
learn, through bitter experience and
by dire remorse, the sin and mischief
OF our wrong doings. Then there is
the thorough ignorance, for the most
part, on the part of the calumniator,
of the mischief and misery that he
causes by calumny. A good, easy
man, or one who believes himself to
be such, may have been steady pro-
pagator of injurious reports deeply
affecting other people; and the poor
man goes down to his grave in the
confident belief that he has been a
most exemplary member of society.
The most unfortunate fact about cal
umny is, that you seldom witness the
sufferings you create by calumniating.
Your other cruelties you know about,
and often see the issue of them; but
the agonies you cause by every form
of calumny, detraction, disparagement
and erroneous statement, rarely come
to your knowledge, or to the knowl-
edge of any human being, except the
person who is calumniated. A GER
tain humorist is wont to contend that
the sum of misery in human life is al
ways the same. He says the sum of
forces in the material world is always
the same, and so is the amount of hu.
man misery. 1t is in vain that you
urge against him that everything has
become milder in the world; that
wars are conducted with less cruelty
and less destruction of property; that
religious persecution has, compare.
lively speaking, ceased to exist; that
| there is an immense advance in medi
cal skill; and that, generally, human
ity is in the ascendant. He is pleas
ed to admit your statements: but con
tends that all these good things are
counterbalanced by more sensitiveness
on the part of the human race, and
by their caring more and more fol
what is said and written about them
and also that there is so much more
talking and SO much more writing
In short, he maintains that the pro
gress of calumny, and the severity
with which it is felt, will always coun
teract any advantages that are gained
for the human race. A strange thing
he observes, is this-that the less
truth there is in the calumny, tht
greater are the suf1erings of the per
son illuminated. You would think,
he says, that when man hears tha


something has been said or written OF
him that does not apply to him, am
more than it would to the inhabitan


of another planet. he would not tax,


the calumny to heart. But no; thi


only makes him more furious and NOR
vexed. If it did apply, he could thel


bear it, as be should deserve it; ant
so in this case the pointless arrow in


hicts the severest wound Moralist


have exhausted their energies in de


nouncing the vices of detraction ant


backbiting. With the exception o.


St. Paul's words about charity, whicl


embrace the whole subject, perhap


the most practical remarks that hay
been made upon it are those whic
/ have been made by the writer VIII
, goes by the name of Thomas AIKEN
pis. After denounclng the evil Of u
t tering injurious statements known t
, be false,-which, however, is compal
atively rare,-he goes on to say tha
Y you should not soon pour out to th
E ears Of others those injurious report
a even that you do believe.-ARrHU
HELPS, IN Good Words.