Tattling by J. Clarke

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 2, 1862

Tattling.

By J. Clarke

A WEAK but persevering brother has heard that Bro. — (a bold and rather confident one) has said a pretty hard thing about him, and it troubles him terribly. He thinks and thinks about it, and dreams of it, and has felt bad about it for weeks; and finally it has magnified itself so in his weak, sickly mind, that it gives a gloomy cast to his countenance and conversation, even his form seems bent a little more than usual.

The expression of the brother who made the wound was at least useless and severe; but he meant no harm in particular, and was probably sorry he made it in a moment from the time it escaped his lips, and if Bro. Tattle who stood close by had said something to disapprove the expression at the time it was made,

and then expelled it forever from his own mind, God would have forgiven it, and Bro. Tattle would have gained himself the more desirable name of Bro. Peace-maker.

But alas! in this case Satan controlled the tongue of Bro. Tattle, which, by the way, is never so glib as when retailing scandal, and so he improved the first fair opportunity of instilling this poison into the diseased mind of the weak brother.

O it makes one sick at heart to think of it! What needless, unnecessary, uncalled for trouble this tattling produces! It is bad, bad! There is not a good feature in the whole work of carrying from one to another what is said.

Contrast the foregoing with the course of Bro. Peace-maker. Everybody knows he will keep his counsel, and his tongue is so free from poison that you may say to him, or rather confide to him, what you please. He will no more speak what will do mischief, than he would throw a nest of hornets into your face. If you speak well of a person, he might possibly tell the person of the compliment, unless he thought it would tend to inflate vanity, then he would be sure to hold his tongue.

Bro. Peace-maker's mind is just like a good fanning-mill: it separates the chaff from the wheat, and you would think, to hear him quote what his brethren say, that he must have wise and good brethren; for if they say anything chaffy, or if there is foul seed in their conversation, he tells them, if any one, and straitway he forgets the bad, his mind only retaining the good. He sifts and sifts, and with a good strong wind, directly from Solomon's Proverbs, he blows out the chaff. While poor Bro. Tattle is like one standing at the tail of a fanning machine: he gets covered with dust and chaff, and goes off with his pockets full of foul seed. J. CLARKE.