p. 139 | The Seeds of Slander

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 15, 1873

The Seeds of Slander

Anybody can soil the reputation of an individual, however pure and chaste, by uttering a suspicion that his enemies will believe and his friends never hear of. A puff of the idle wind can take a million of the seeds of a thistle and do a work of mischief which the husbandman must labor long to undo, the floating particles being too fine to be seen and too light to be stopped. Such are the seeds of slander, so easily sown, so difficult to be gathered up, and yet so pernicious in their fruits. The slanderer knows that many a mind will catch up the plague and become poisoned by his insinuations, without ever seeking the antidote. No reputation can refute a sneer, nor any human skill prevent mischief.