Isn't it interesting that when people gossip, they assign motives for the deeds of those whom they are slandering. Now, how can they know what people were thinking when they did the things they did? Can these talebearers read minds? Of course not. So, how do they know what the motive was? They don't. Where then do they get the motives that they assign to these who are the subjects of their evil speaking? Why, they are the inventions of their own minds, out of the awful corruption of their own hearts! These backbiters assign motives to others that they themselves would have, or have had, in similar situations. So, when we backbite, gossip, speak evil, bear tales and slander, we are really revealing our own wicked hearts, laying them bare for all to see.
It is to our shame that when we see the vileness of another's heart as he defames a brother to us, we respond in kind and take the slanderer's sin as an excuse and justification to slander too. How contrary to our Saviour's commands we delight to be in this. "Charity . . . thinketh no evil."
"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."
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