Tattling and Gossip by John Norton Loughborough

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 2, 1873

Tattling and Gossip.

By John Norton Loughborough

A sure cure. All entitled to the recipe free, if they will only use it.

I said a cure; but there is more than one cure. Two cures for gossip, at least, occur to my mind now; one in fact, however, serves as a preventive to the disease, as well as acting as a sure cure in case the disease exists. That is, to get the heart fully imbued with the great principles that are the foundation of all righteousness: “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” and with this, make the salvation of our fellow-men of more consequence to us than any selfish interest, spending leisure moments in searching our own hearts, and humbly inquiring before God what we can do to lead some poor soul to the Lord; not only inquiring for duty, but doing it. If the head and heart and hands are busily employed, always employed in doing good, we shall have no time to find fault with others. Pursuing such a course is destructive to the spirit of selfishness every time; and be it known that tattling and gossip are usually accompanied with selfishness,—it is a system of self-clearing, blaming somebody for some evil, real, or imaginary. It is a system of “mote” pulling, too often, alas, with those who have the plague spots of “the beam” in themselves.

But there! I am not coming at what I intended when I wrote the heading of this article. It was a cure for tattling of which I designed to speak, a genuine cure in a case where this plague has really come into the house. Our Saviour says it is impossible but that offenses will come. He never told us to tear Heaven down over other peoples’ heads to get justice done for ourselves, but he has given us an excellent rule to follow in Matt. 18:15–17. Read this scripture carefully: “If thy brother trespass against thee, tell him his fault between thee and him alone.” That, of course, is the first duty, if we have been wronged, or injured, or even imagine that such is the case. We have no business to go to a third party with a supposed trespass of a brother or a sister until we have first been to them. If we fail, after going in a humble, prayerful spirit, to rescue the brother or sister, then tell it to one or two more. “Take with thee one or two.”

These scriptures give only one privilege in going to others with the supposed trespass of a brother or sister; that is, to get them to go with you, to humbly assist in effecting a reconciliation.

The remedy I propose is this: If a brother or sister comes to us with the supposed or real wrongs of another, do not let us suppose for a moment that they would dare to transgress the injunction of the Saviour. Acting upon that thought, consider them in the light of those who have come to get our aid to settle the real or imagined difficulty. Of course, they have been to the one who has grieved them, and now want us to go with them to help settle it. Perhaps they are diffident about telling us their real want. Never mind. As they begin to tell you the faults of a brother or sister, say to them, Certainly, I will help you; let us pray over the matter; after which, go directly to the brother or sister and have this matter talked over at once. If all will accept this recipe, and pledge themselves thus to act, mountains of trial, sometimes existing, would vanish into mole-hills. My humble judgment is that this remedy is death to a spirit of gossip and tattling in a church. Try it and see. J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.