A SERMON AGAINST SLANDER

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21419, 11 March 1935, Page 7

A SERMON AGAINST SLANDER

TO THE BDITO* OT THE PKESS. Sir, —I read with deep interest of the sermon preached last week by the Rev. K Schollar, of New Brighton, and I am sure that it will put everyone there good heart, for one can imagine every man and woman there exclaimfne- "Well done! That will make Mr lng " crMrs sit up!" As for scandal being the greatest sin on earth and as for the regular churchgoers hp in e singularly free from it, I have my ?w„ pinion: but I will leave the argument to others. I know that a certain amount of gossip is a powerful deterrent to wrong doing for many people place far more value on the respect of others than they do on thenown self-respect. Surely they haVe not overstepped the mark in New Brighton to bring scandal down on them' I know rumour has it mat sometimes the very tide has to turn away but personally I hold that there may be other reasons for its doing so, -md besides, I am not writing this to "ive a fillip to the trams. Still it. seems Sminous that their champion Mr Peter 'J'rolove. has not arisen to defend his (prritory. There may be only a small ma rain'between gossip and mild scandal "but the expert scandalmonger is a verv dangerous person, sorting out and 'enlarging on the worst in people's lives a sneak with no regard for truth or honesty. The only check on these poisoners is not to pass on their stuff. Kipling in his doleful piece, The Hvenas" places those common scavengers 'on the battlefield far above our moral scavengers when he ends, "Nor do they defile the dead mans name —That is reserved for his kind." Much pleasanter are the lines from a very old poem—"For if but little good be known, Still let us speak the best we can."—Yours, etc.. TAg March 9, 1935. TO THB EPITO* or THE riiK*B. Sir. May I congratulate Mr Schollar on his sermon, attacking the slanderer? There is no one so hard to catch as I lie slanderer, and usually tiio victim is the last one to hear of what, is being said and by whom. Then, when the slanderer is at last brought, to bay. he becomes a rank coward and instead of sticking to his guns, and having a fight in the open, lie immediately tries to escape from his slander by untruths. A slanderer id always a moral coward. When asked to prove the slander he tries to escape by denying it or trying to J'asten the blame on to someone else. —Yours, etc., A SUFFERER. . March 9. 1935.