MISCHIEF-MAKING TONGUES.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 194, 28 May 1878, Page 3

MISCHIEF-MAKING TONGUES.

It is as easy as lying, said Hamlet to his false-hearted companions. Who does not know Lew hard it is to tell the precise truth without swerving the breadth of a hair to the right or the left. It is a comparatively hard thing to tell the truth about ourselves, to represent correctly our own opinions ; but when it comes to telling the truth about others, to reproducing accurately their words, and doing justice to their sentiments and motives, the difficulties of the task are multiplied indefinitely. And yet there rests hardly any stronger obligation upon men than that of telling the truth about their fellow-men. We are bound, if we say anything about them to say what is true. Above all, if we undertake to repeat their words and to state their opinions, we are bound to take the utmost care that we do them no injustice. No man has any right to misrepresent or misquote another, even unintentionally. It is no excuse to say that he did not intend to do another an injury, he should have made sure that he did none. The rule should be, Quote a nun's words correctly, or not at all ; speak ihn exact truth of him, or speak nothing.

Some men seem to have a constitutional inability to tell the simple truth. They may not mean to lie, or to tell an untrutli. But they are careless—careless in hearing, careless in understanding, careless in Repeating what is said to them. These well meaning but reckless people do more mischief than those who intentionally foment strife by deliberate falsehood. There is no firebrand like your well-meaning bueybodj^Sf -f is continuall in search of scandal, 6heer habit misquotes everybody's oUXaiaents. This carelessness is a sin of in> small magnitude. A man's duty to God and to his fellows requires him to be careful— for what else were brains and common sense gkgn him ? Of course, that other class, malignant scandal-mongers who take a fieiidish pleasure in promoting strife, who deliberately garble men's words and twisty their sentiments—is in the minority, and people have a pretty decided opinion, regarding them. Most men misrepresent because they don't seem to think that care in speaking the truth is a pre-eminent duty.

The effects of this careless misrepresenting of others are seen everywhere. Its effect on the individual is to confirm him in a habit of loose, distorted and exaggerated statement, until telling the truth becomes a moral impossibility. No other thing causes so many longstanding friendships to be broken, so grave dessensions in churches, so much bitterness in communities, and so much evil everywhere. It is an abuse that calls for the rebuke of ever/ honorable man— a rebuke that should be given not only in v,'ord whenever occasion demands, but by example. The Persians were said to teach their youth three things ; to ride,

to draw the bow, and to speak the truth. A little more instruction on this latter head would do no harm to our " advanced civilization."