A Perennial Evil.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 23, 5 June 1902, Page 5

A Perennial Evil.

In the lengthy catalogue of man's offences against the divine law (says the Are Mann') there is doubtless many a more grievous sin, but scarcely a more common one, than uncharitable speech. Serious reflection on this subject during ten minute?, and a v vid recollecticn of the habitual drift taken by the conversation of our-s-clves and our friends and acquaintances, will suffice to convince us that St. Jerome had excellent reason to write . ' Rarely do we find any cne who is not ready to blame his neighbor's conduct' ; and that St. James hardly exaggeratt-d when he declared: 'If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.' The quasi-universality of this evil explains the affectionate insistence with which the Beloved Disciple St. John used in his old age to reiterate to his flock : ' My little children, love one another.' Love is, in very truth, the only charm that can effectively tame our rampant desire to impart to others whatever we know to the discredit of our neighbor. We divulge nothing that is prejudicial to to ourselves, whom we love very nine erely ; we sedulously keep secret anything detrimental to the good name of the friend of our boßom ; and, just in proportion to the genuineness of our charity — our loving our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God — will be our reticence concerning that neighbor's victs, crimes, sins, faults, or backslidings. Perhaps the most singular circumstance connected with this very general sin of detraction is the slight account made of it by those who incur its guilt. It would be difficult to discover any other offence in the whole ' table of sins ' concerning which so many people, even normally good people, have erroneous consciences. Penitents who are scrupulously exact in detailing their transgressions will gloss over sins of detraction that are unquestionably mortal, as if such lapses scarcely merited the name of imperfections. Yet it is obvious that neither imperfections nor even venial fins render us ' hateful to God,' and it is thus that St. Paul characterises detractors. Indeed , the defamation of our neighbor is anathematised in Holy Scripture in a manner that clearly proves it to be, in its nature, a grievous sin — a ' fin unto death.' But, of course, it admits levity of matter ; and thus many (let us hope, most) uncharitable speeches are only venial. It is well, however, to bear in mind the remark of St. Alphonsus : 0 fool ! thou dost declaim against the sin of another, and meanwhile, by evil speaking, dost commit a far greater sin than that which thou blamest in thy neighbor. It is elementary that the detractor is not freed from guilt simply because, as he is wont to declare : ' After all, I told only the simple truth.' Unless the simple truth that is detrimental to my neighbor's character is generally known, is notorious, I very certainly sin against the justice which I owe to him when I divulge that truth to others. Just as certainly lam bound to repair, as far as is possible, the injury which has been occasioned to him by-my detraction. And this ie another point that merits some insistence.

Exactly as restitution, when practicable, is a condition precedent to the validity of absolution from the of theft, so reparation of the damage done to our neighbor's character mu^t precede our being loosed from the sin of evil speaking. The knowledge that effective reparation is a most difficult matter should prove a strong de terrent to restrain us f rr>m incurring the obligation of making it at all. We have everything to gain — peace of conscience, the esteem of cur fe'lows, and the blessing of God — by strictly adhering to the rule graphically laid down f<r us fn EccletdaetieuH : ' Hast thou heard a word against thy neighbor ? Let it die within thee, trusting that it will not burst titee.'