SLANDER by S. S. Times

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 11.

SLANDER.

By S. S. Times

"SLANDER" is commonly understood to be a false report affecting another's character, uttered maliciously; yet, as a matter of fact, that slander which, as a rule, does most harm to reputation, is not uttered maliciously, but is spoken recklessly or thoughtlessly by those who have no deliberate or passionate purpose of evil in giving it currency. The malicious utterance of a slander is likely to defeat its purpose by its very exhibit of malice; whereas a slander that is simply repeated by one person after another, with its steadily increasing scope and explicitness, as a matter of gossip or as an item of popular information, often seems too natural to be wholly a fabrication, and it gradually gains a credence that properly belongs to established truth.

It is the "they say," or "they all say," that slips so easily from the unwatched tongue, and that enters so freely the unguarded ear. And there is never a time, nor ever a social circle, when and where there is not some foul slander concerning innocent and unsuspicious persons, which is passed from one to another unthinkingly, on the basis, or the baselessness, of this indefinite origin. He who consents to hear such a charge against another without giving it a challenge, accords his tacit approval to a slander. He who consents to pass such a charge along as something which he has heard and has not challenged, becomes himself a slander-monger, if not indeed a willful slanderer. He, on the other hand, who challenges any such slander, and who rebukes its utterer, is so far an upright man and a public benefactor. Let no person utter a slander in your hearing unrebuked by you. Have a care not to be a slanderer by repeating a charge affecting another's good name, while you lack such proof of its correctness as would justify you in repeating it boldly to its subject's face.—S. S. Times.