| The Way of Victory |
Chapter 4 |
Page 4 |
There are some people whose chief desire seems to be, not goodness, but evil. “An ungodly man diggeth up evil.” It seems very sad that any person should live just to devise mischief. God has given us minds that we may think good thoughts and plan beautiful things for others. But some people never think of doing anything that will be helpful. They plot all sorts of evil and then they go out and do the evil things which they have devised.
There is no meaner act than that of the deviser of evil who says ill-natured and false things about his acquaintances. The world is full of such people-people who are proving every day the truth of the proverb, “A whisperer separateth chief friends.” There is a beatitude which says, “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” Our aim in life should be not to separate friends but to cement friendship, to remove misunderstandings which may have risen between friends, and to bring together those who by any cause have been sundered. This is the Christian thing to do. But here we read about a man who separateth good friends. He does it by whispering in the ear of one or the other of them things he has heard about the other. We have no right to carry from one to another the idle things we hear. No meanness is worse than that of the whisperer. His name — the whisperer — suggests a spirit that is evil. We should repeat to others only pleasant things. If by any chance we hear any unpleasant things we have no right to repeat them.
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