GOSSIPING IN THE PRESENCE OF CHILDREN.
A habit of indulging in gossip is pernicious in its influences and results over us all. “Pity ’tis, ’tis true,” that we oftentimes give a willing ear to the stories circulating about our friends and acquaintances, and more is the pity that we are tempted too readily, and yield to the temptation, to tell these detrimental reports over again to other willing ears. It is astonishing how thoughtless mothers often are of their speech before children. Children are very attentive listeners. They may seem to be interested in their play or their books, but, nevertheless, nothing said by their elders escapes their ears. Children like to hear what their elders are talking about, especially if the talk is carried on with a show of mystery. Friends may speak depreciatingly of some other friend, without a thought of the consequences, and perhaps without even a remembrance of the words spoken, a few days afterwards, but the child who hears it makes a memorandum of the sins of commission or omission which mother and her friend talked over, and thus an unjust prejudice is acquired, which the mother is astonished to hear expressed perhaps weeks afterwards. “What mother says must be so,” is the argument the child uses to reason out the wrong and right of things. Mother is the ideal of all that is true and just and good. Think of this, mothers. What wonderful trust your little child places in you and your judgment and actions! Is it not a very serious matter to be a child’s ideal of what is best and truest in motherhood? “Mrs. So and So must be a dreadful woman,” reasons the child, who has heard that neighbor spoken of in a depreciatory manner. And if that neighbor has a child, what a show of superior goodness the child of the gossiping mother carries about with her hereafter when she mingles with Mrs. So-and-So’s child! How pitifully she regards her in the light of her mother’s depreciating estimate—it is such a dreadful thing to have a mother who does things which mother thinks are so bad! Two-thirds of the gossip circulated about persons is libelous, because it is untrue, and, if legally followed up, would prove a crime. The sad results of scandalous stories are often pitiful in the extreme. We try to have our children acquire habits of truth and justice that will help them on in right living, but are we particular to teach them not to speak untruthfully or unjustly of their little playmates? When they come to us with a story which depreciates the good qualities of some little friend, do we counsel them not to tell over anything which will hurt the reputation of that child? Do we help them to acquire the habit of that charity which thinketh no evil of one’s neighbor?—Evangelist.