that they may grow thereby. The Redeemer guards us against this evil, by directing us, whenever we may have cause of complaint against our brother, to go and tell him of his fault between him and us alone, in order to bring him to a better way. If our private admonition fail, he allows us to take with us one or two more, and if this plan fail, he allows us to tell it to the church; but in no case will he allow us to speak of his fault for any but the weightiest reasons. If therefore we do not lay aside and avoid this practice, we go in direct opposition to the admonitions of Christ and his Apostles, and expose ourselves to all the punishments reserved for those who obey not the gospel of God.

Again; talking of the faults of others is destructive to charity. It generates uncharitableness in the hearts of those who indulge the practice. We may have no ill-will to the person of whose faults we speak, but speaking evil will beget ill-will in our souls. You are sure to feel unkindly towards a person of whom you accustom yourselves to speak evil. You will be afraid that the person you have thus wronged will hear of the wrong you have done him; and you will shrink from meeting him and we soon begin to hate when once we have begun to fear. Evil speaking generates uncharitableness in the minds of those to whom we speak. Many have been filled with unkind thoughts and feelings towards very worthy persons, in consequence of being told some story respecting them by a careless or malicious backbiter. Hence friendships are prevented, and hearts are set against each other, that might otherwise have united and mingled to their mutual comfort and advantage.

And it very seldom happens that truth is adhered to in speaking of people's faults. Persons who dare not speak one-half the truth to a person's face, will readily speak more than the truth behind his back. If the fault we speak of is trifling, we must add a little, to make it seem worth naming. And uncharitableness always magnifies trifles into mighty matters, and evil speakers have always uncharitableness enough. Hence

evil speakers almost always become liars. If they do not make lies, they will often mend a truth until it becomes a lie. And evil speakers are always evil hearers. They will not only speak of those faults which they have seen, but of those of which they have only heard; and they will oftener hear what is false than what is true. And after having given circulation to one falsehood, they must frame others to keep it in countenance, and entangle themselves in guilt without end.

And if what is said be no more than the truth, it will not be the whole truth; and to tell only one part of the truth respecting a man, may be as unjust and unkind, and be as great an injury to him, as to circulate lies respecting him. You tell a man that John Hapless has been in prison, but you do not tell him that John was sent there by a bigot, for preaching in the open air. Such a one, you say, has been known to be in liquor; you have heard so; but you did not hear that it was when he was a thoughtless lad, before he either professed religion or tee-totalism. In these cases you produce an impression, on the minds of those to whom you speak, that is false, and though what you say is truth, yet as it is truth so told as is calculated to deceive, you are guilty in telling it, of all the criminality of lying and calumny. You do not intend to deceive people it may be, but you ought, on subjects of this nature, to speak so that your hearers cannot be deceived; and till you can so speak, you ought to hold your tongue. If the fault you talk of has been committed lately, you may still be guilty of deception, if you do not name all the circumstances. But who can name all the circumstances? you ask; we answer nobody, and for that reason nobody ought to name the fault, unless duty require it to be named. I have seen when things have been told of persons which seemed quite criminal at first, and yet the mention of one circumstance has shown that the thing was quite proper. The fault we talk about may have been committed in ignorance, or it may have resulted from sudden temptation,

and it may, before this, have been repented of and forsaken for ever. But he has often done so, you say. But has he often been told of it? Perhaps all that have seen his failings have been like you; have spoken of it to others, and never spoken of it to himself. Ninetenths of the faults which people talk so much about are not one-twentieth part so bad, as that single fault which they commit, in needlessly talking about them.

Talking of people's faults to others often creates unpleasant feelings in the minds of those we talk about. They will often get to hear what we say, and they are sure to feel strongly on the subject, and then we shall never more be able to be of much use to them. We might have been of use to them before, if we had spoken to themselves; for they would have thought we loved them, if in a loving way we had named their faults to themselves alone: but now they see we do not love them, and people will hardly receive admonition from those who have proved themselves unkind. Every time therefore you talk to others of a persons faults, you may calculate on lessening the number of those to whom you have the ability to be useful. And you shut up your way of usefulness to the friends of him whom you injure also, and the unwillingness to attend to your advice and admonitions may extend to their friend's friends. Every one therefore, who has any wish to be of use to others, should shun evil speaking as he would shun death. Preachers and officers of churches, who are appointed chiefly for the spiritual good of others, should be especially careful to avoid this vice, as by one or two rash words, they may throw away the richest opportunities of doing good for ever.

And you are sure to lower yourself in the esteem of others, if you indulge yourself in this vice. No one respects an evil speaker. Some may fear him, but none esteem and love him. Both ignorant and wise think less of a man, from the moment they hear him speak lightly of the faults of another.

By spreading the fame of a persons faults, you hinder that person's usefulness. If his faults are old ones,

such as have been long since amended and forgiven, the story of them may still stop up the way of a man's usefulness. And how unseemly and diabolical it is, that, instead of rejoicing in a man's improvement and usefulness, you should eagerly expose his former faults, and hinder him from blessing and improving others.

And you cannot talk of a man's faults in the usual way without doing him injustice. You cannot give his full character, and if you could you would not; for those who practise evil speaking, never wish the whole of a man's character to be understood. It is generally some vile passion that sets a man on evil speaking, which will not let him name a man's good deeds. And to name a man's faults without his virtues, is both false and dishonest. If we must speak of another's faults, let us speak of them to his face. If we want to make him better, the less we talk of him the better. We ought to speak to the man himself first of all, and if we were to take that plan, we should not need, in many cases, to do any thing more. Faithful and loving and timely reproof, would cure nine tenths of all the faults in the universe. In talking of men's faults to others, we are doing the Devil's work, and we shall reap the Devil's wages; in telling men themselves of their faults, when we do it in a Christian way, we are doing the work of God.

One

comes from a love of man and a love of goodness, the other comes from wantonness and wickedness. One is the employment of a man that is good, the other is the work of one that wishes to be thought good. Angels and God and all good men must look on the evil speaker with displeasure, but on the man that aims at reforming his brother they will look with smiles.

That we may be the more fitted to reprove our brethren, let us try to be perfect ourselves. The cause why many do not reprove their brethren is, that they themselves are faulty. They feel that they deserve reproof as much as their brother, and because they do not choose to mend their own faults, they

make them double by speaking evil of their brother. These shifts are all of the devil, and should all be renounced together. Let them go, and in their places let us have truth and charity, and courage and fidelity; and both we, our brethren, and the church and the world will be the better for it. God will be pleased with us, and we shall be more pleased with one another. Strifes and jealousies, shy looks and hard thoughts will be driven from the church. Hearts will unite and mingle; peace and joy will dwell in our bosoms; satan will be baffled, and his strongholds shaken; Christ's cause will go on and triumph; and God's truth and spirit will subdue the world.

HE CAN AFFORD IT.

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Again; if a rich man may innocently keep his riches to himself, or employ them in procuring selfish and earthly gratifications; a wise man may innocently keep his wisdom to himself, delighting himself in his own contemplations, and in increasing his intellectual treasures, while the ignorant around are suffering and perishing for want of his instructions. And then also we must grant it lawful for the magistrate, the legislator and the prince, to employ their power chiefly for their own gratification; while the oppressed and wronged are crying for redress, or dying in despair. And then we must grant to every man the liberty to use his time as he pleases, and to spend his life, not with an eye to usefulness, but as his inclinations and the customs of the world may prompt. I cannot see any difference in these cases, so far as our duty to God is concerned. Wealth is a trust from God, as well as wisdom and power and time; and there is as much need of the rich man's contributions, both to promote the temporal and eternal comfort of mankind, as there is of the wise man's instructions, or of the ruler's interference in behalf of the oppressed, or the labours and prayers of humbler christians. We shall all have to stand before the same