The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum A Week with Augustine

An illustration of how devastating can be is vividly presented by Rev. Van Reenen in his sermon on The Ninth Commandment.

You can not set right what your slandering has perverted. I am thinking of a minister whose life had been embittered by lies and slander. But when that man lay on his deathbed, the slanderers became so alarmed that they came with words of regret and asked him how they could make amends. Without many words he gave his slanderers a pillow and said, "Take this pillow and standing upon the tower, shake the feathers out of it. Then pick up the feathers again, put them in the pillow and place it under my head. Then you will have made amends for your evil conduct."

"But, sir," they said, "we shall not be able to do that! The wind shall scatter the feathers everywhere. We shall not be able to gather half of them."

"Thus," said the dying servant of God, "you cannot make amends, for your slander has also spread far and near. Ask forgiveness of God, seek reconciliation with the Father, in the atonement of the Son, by the work of the Holy Spirit."

That is the advice I give to all my fellow sinners with the sincere wish that the Lord grant you grace and power from above to follow that advice!

One who permits himself to hear the slanderous gossip of another is no less guilty of sin than the one who perpetrates this character assassination. Thus we need to not only guard our own tongue from delivering this poisonous communication, but also to prohibit it from being done in our hearing.