Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/233

 are, according to the Wise Man, on the side of the devil, who, because he could not bear to see men in heaven, from which he had been banished, tempted Adam to rebel against God. "But by the envy of the devil death came into the world; and they follow him that are of his side." (Wis. ii. 25.) Let us pass to the next point. Second Point. On the charity which we ought to practise towards our neighbour in words. 4. With regard to the practice of fraternal charity in words, we ought, in the first place, and above all, to abstain from all detraction. ” The tale-bearer shall defile his own soul, and shall be hated by all." (Eccl. xxi. 31.) As they who always speak well of others are loved by all, so he who detracts his neighbour is hateful to all to God and to men, who, although they take delight in listening to detraction, hate the detractor, and are on their guard against him. St. Bernard says that the tongue of a detractor is a three-edged sword. ” Gladius equidem anceps, immo triplex est lingua detractoris" (in Ps. lvi). With one of these edges it destroys the reputation of a neighbour; with the second it wounds the souls of those who listen to the detraction; and with the third it kills the soul of the detractor by depriving him of the divine grace. You will say: ” I have spoken of my neighbour only in secret to my friends, and have made them promise not to mention to others what I told them." This excuse will not stand: no; you are, as the Lord says, the serpent that bites in silence. ” If a serpent bite in silence, he is nothing better that backbiteth secretly." (Eccl. x. 11.) Your secret defamation bites and destroys the character of a neighbour. They who indulge in the vice of detraction are chastised not only in the next, but also in. this life, because their uncharitable tongues are the cause of a thousand sins, by creating discord in whole families and entire villages. Thomas Cantaprensis (Apum, etc., cap. xxxvii.) relates, that he knew a certain detractor, who at the end of life became raging mad, and died lacerating his tongue with his teeth. The tongue of another detractor, who was going to speak