Gossip may be defined as a remembering and repeating the acts and words of others. Now this is not necessarily wrong. It is sometimes right both to remember and to repeat others' acts and words. But there are several questions that we should do well to ask ourselves before we do so, and if we cannot answer them satisfactorily, we shall do very well to hold our peace, even if it is painful for

us.

1. Do we know accurately all the circumstances of the incident that we relate? Nothing in the world is easier than to draw false inferences from observed facts. For example, a person sees a clergyman on two or three occasions within a few days coming out from or going into a public house, and draws the conclusion that he is of intemperate habits. As a matter of fact he is a total abstainer and was visiting a sick man.

Sometimes appearances are very deceitful. There is the well-known story of the host at a dinner party, who passed round for the inspection of his guests a very rare and most valuable medal, with the remark that it was the only one of its kind in existence. The medal disappeared, and on a proposal being made to search the guests, one man utterly refused to allow himself to be searched, and left under a dark cloud of suspicion. The medal was afterwards found under a candlestick, which had accidentally been placed over it, and the guest, being asked why he had refused to be searched, replied that it was because he happened to have a duplicate of it in his pocket and no one would have believed that he had not stolen it. Unless then we are certain that we know all the circumstances we may be guilty of grave injustice.

2. Can we trust our memories? Any one who knows anything of the courts will know that perfectly honest witnesses will give the most amazingly varying accounts of the same incident and even of the same words. They do not intend to falsify anything, but very few people have the gift of accurate observation, and very few people remember exactly what they have seen or heard. Very often a story runs something like this. The original fact is

that A finds an empty purse lying on the road and accidentally refers to the fact. The story is handed from mouth to mouth as follows: A has found a purse; A has found a purse of money; A has found a sum of money; A has become possessed of a sum of money; A has possessed himself of a sum of money; A has possessed himself of a considerable sum of money; A has stolen a large sum of money, and so on.

Enormous harm is often done by repeating statements that we hear in a slightly altered form, often not maliciously altered, but too often altered unconsciously for the worse.

3. Can we trust ourselves not to exaggerate? In addition to the untrustworthiness of our memory, there is often a very strong temptation to exaggerate slightly what we hear. The simple truth often sounds a little flat and uninteresting when we repeat it. There is a strong temptation just to over-emphasise it here and there, to give point to our remarks. We justify it to ourselves by saying that the person to whom we speak will not catch the point as we see it unless we do thus underline, as it were, certain things. A great many of us habitually exaggerate or minimise in speaking. We speak of a few minutes when we mean half an hour, or we say we have been waiting hours when we mean less than half an hour. These little inaccuracies may be harmless when people know us and allow for them, but they often cause serious trouble when we are dealing with matters in which other people are concerned. Lastly, we do well to ask ourselves what exactly is our object in repeating tales that we have heard. Is it with the honest belief and intention of helping our neighbour and really doing good to the world around us? In that case it may be well to speak after having put to ourselves and honestly answered the foregoing questions; but we must remember that there are many other common reasons for gossip and talebearing. Sometimes we want to raise a laugh, sometimes just to get some one to listen to our talk, sometimes to show how wrong other people are, and by comparison how good we are, sometimes it is pure idleness, sometimes a good deal of malice and unkindness

enters into it. It is pleasant to many of us to hear something to the discredit of a person whom we do not like. There are many reasons why we should abstain from talebearing, but the main one is that given in the text. "When

there is no wood, the fire goeth out, so where there is no talebearer the strife ceaseth." The talebearer is the fuel that keeps the fire of strife going. When we realise all the trouble and sorrow and pain that is caused by strife and bitterness, we may well resolve that we at least will not be responsible for its growth and continuance.

There is another side to the question also. If it be wrong to carry tales, it is also wrong to receive and credit them. There would be few talebearers if there were not itching ears ready to receive their words. We need, as our Lord warned us, to take heed how we hear.

Ecclesiasticus has a wise word: "Admonish a friend, it may be he hath not done it; and if he have done it, that he do it no more. Admonish thy friend; it may be he hath not said it, and if he hath, that he speak it not again. Admonish a friend, for many times it is a slander, and believe not every tale." Charity," says St. Paul, "thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity (i.e. in hearing and talking about iniquity), but rejoiceth in the truth."

Remember that our Lord has told us that we shall have to give account for every idle word, and talebearing is a worse evil than idle words.

St. Peter warns us against being busy bodies in other men's matters, and St. Paul bids us be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us. A great many people do not realise that gossip and talebearing are sins at all, yet they are surely a grievous offence against that principle of love which is the very centre of the Christian faith.

"He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God Whom he hath not seen? "

There is so much that is good and pleasant to talk about, so much that harms no one and so much that brings comfort and happiness to others that we may well deny ourselves the pleasure that comes from the dangerous practice of

gossip. Rarely does it do any good and often it does untold harm. As St. James says: "If ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, boast not and lie not against the truth . . . for where envying and strife are there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and of good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy, and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace."

XIV. SIN

All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.ROMANS III. 23.

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HAT is sin? The Bible gives us various answers. The most common name for sin in it means properly "missing the mark.” It is also called "transgression" or going off the track, "separation from God," debt that we owe, a disease from which we suffer, a "bondage" from which we cannot free ourselves, 66 selfwill," failure to control our lower nature and so on.

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We are not to suppose that the idea of sin is peculiar to Christianity. It is true that the Christian conscience is peculiarly sensitive to sin, but the idea is most widespread. We find it in ancient Egypt, in India, in Africa, and in far off Mexico accompanied by all kinds of sacrifices, lustrations and purificatory rites. It is the mainspring of many of the great tragedies of the Greek poets, and of the stories of Edipus, Orestes, and Antigone. It is recognised in the inner voice of Socrates, which warned him of wrong-doing and prompted him to good. It forms the theme of the Last Judgment of Plato, and the poet Cleanthes, in his great hymn to Zeus quoted by St. Paul, says that God does all things, save that which wicked men do in the folly of their

own hearts. The Roman poet Ovid confesses: "I see the things that are better and approve them, but I follow the worse," while both Horace and Juvenal attribute the misfortunes of their country directly to the sins of their people.

It is very interesting to note the gradual growth of the idea of sin in the Bible. At first, sin was conceived of as a transgression, voluntary or involuntary, of an arbitrary command of God. Thus the sin of an individual involved the punishment of his whole family, and even the slaying of his flocks and herds, as in the case of Achan and his family, and the destruction of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with their wives and little ones and all that they had. The consequences of sin went even far beyond the family. The whole race of man was involved in Adam's sin, and the peoples of Israel and Judah were punished for the sins of their kings. That an individual was perfectly innocent of intention to offend, made no difference at all; thus Jonathan was condemned to death by his own father for a crime of which he was clearly innocent, and God was even represented as choosing him out as the guilty person.

The Law of God was confused with the performance of certain outward acts of ceremonial observance, until there was a real danger of religion becoming, as later it did become among the Pharisees, a mere matter of keeping the letter of the law, while violating its spirit with impunity. It was against this danger and against the vicarious punishment, that the Hebrew prophets raised their voices in such noble and passionate protest, "Hath God as great delight in sacrifice and burnt offerings as in obeying the voice of the Lord?" "I am full of your burnt offerings of rams." "Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or ten thousands of rivers of oil? ... He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" "The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. . . . I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth saith the Lord God, wherefore turn yourselves and live."