pestilence, which is the poisoned source of innumerable and calamitous evils. This vicious habit of secretly reviling and calumniating character is reprobated in almost every page of the Sacred Scriptures: "With him," says David, " I would not eat;" [1] and St. James: " Detract not one another, my brethren." [2] The inspired Volume abounds not only with precepts on the Illustration, subject, but, also, with examples which declare the enormity of the vice of detraction. Haman, by a crime of his own invention, had incensed Assuerus against the Jews; and the consequence of the calumny was a royal mandate for the destruction of an unoffending people. [3] Innumerable examples, which illustrate the same wicked tendency of the sins of calumny and detraction, are to be found in the pages of sacred history; and these the pastor will adduce, to deter his people from a crime of such magnitude.
But, to see in its full light the deformity of this sin, we must know, that reputation is injured not only by calumniating the character, but, also, by exaggerating the faults, of others. He who gives publicity to the secret sin of any man, at a time, in a place, or before persons, in which or before whom, the mischievous communication is unnecessary, incurs the just imputation of a detractor and a slanderer.
But, of all sorts of calumnies the worst is that which is levelled against the Catholic doctrine and its teachers: persons who extol the propagators of error and of unsound doctrine are involved in similar criminality; nor are those to be dissociated from their number, or their guilt, who, instead of reproving, lend a willing ear, and a cheerful assent, to the calumniator. As we read in St. Jerome, [4] and St. Bernard, [5] " Whether the detractor or the listener be the more criminal, it is not so easy to decide; if there were no listeners, there would be no detractors."
To the same class of detractors belong those who continue to foment division, and excite dissension, and who feel a malignant pleasure in sowing discord; dissevering, by fiction and falsehood, the closest friendships; loosing the dearest social ties, and impelling to endless hatred and hostility the fondest friends. Of such pestilent characters the Lord expresses his detestation in these words: " Thou shall not be a detractor nor a whisperer among the people." [6] Of this description were many of the advisers of Saul, who strove to alienate his affection from, and to exasperate his enmity against, David. [7]
Finally, amongst the transgressors of this commandment are to be numbered those wheedlers and sycophants, who insinuate their blandishments and hollow praises into the ears, and gain upon the hearts of those, after whose interest, money, and honours they hanker; as the prophet says, "calling good evil, and
