Gashmu was a gossip. “It is reported among the heathen,” wrote Sanballat in a malicious letter to Nehemiah, “and Gashmu saith it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel.” That is all the Bible tells us about Gashmu. He slinks down to immortality as a slanderer, the pedlar of a wretched libel that he knew to be untrue.

Gashmu is a very old gentleman indeed, and yet he is ever young. Like the Wandering Jew, he makes his appearance in all periods of history. The earliest traditions of our race picture him in Eden busily engaged in telling lies about the character of God. The Psalmist knows him to his sorrow, and tells us something of his bitter malice, when he says of his slanderers, “Adders’ poison is under their lips.” Gashmu was a powerful ally of the Scribes and Pharisees in their attacks on our Lord, and took an active part in securing his condemnation by Pilate. In the early Church he was a well-known character, if we may judge from the constant warnings about evil-speaking in the Epistles, and especially in the Epistle of St. James, of which the third chapter is almost entirely given up to a stern denunciation of sins of the tongue. And to-day, into whatever society you go, you will be fairly sure to find Gashmu there, chattering about the. failings, real or supposed, of other people. We most of us know Gashmu quite well. He is a [1/2] personal friend, and often visits at our houses. More than that, he comes to church, and takes his part in church work, and kneels at the altar-to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, without the slightest sense of inconsistency.

It is utterly shameful, and yet it is absolutely true, that the social and family life in which we are joined together as members, of the Church gives Gashmu one of his most fruitful opportunities of doing mischief. How uncharitably we often speak of our fellow Catholics, members perhaps of the same congregation, who join with us in worship and prayer, who unite with us in offering the same sacrifice, who are one with us in the bonds of Christian service. It is in the gossip of Gashmu that we find the most fruitful cause of the quarrels, the petty jealousies, the spite, the rancour, the inability to work together, which so often mar the work of the Church and render, ineffective her efforts for the salvation of souls.

It should be added that Gashmu has a wife; and I am not sure that Mrs. Gashmu is not a good deal worse than her husband. I do not mean that women talk about other people more than men do; but I think it is fair to say that on the whole they talk about them more spitefully and unkindly; there is far more sting and venom in what they say.

However, perhaps I take that point of view because I am a mere man, and it may be that if this tract had been written by a woman it would tell a different story. But without attempting to measure out the blame between the sexes, let us each one take the rebuke home [2/3] to himself or herself, as the case may be. I am afraid a very great many of us have the name Gashmu written on our visiting-cards, whether there be a Mr. or a Mrs., or a Miss, or even, alas! a Revd. in front of it. It behoves us one and all to pray earnestly to the Holy Ghost to open our eyes to the contemptible nature of this mean and degrading sin, and to give us his grace to enable us to overcome it.

For consider the results of evil-speaking. In the first place, it does grievous harm to those who practise it. “So is the tongue among the members,” says St. James, “that it defiles the whole body.” We do grevious harm to ourselves by talking scandal, and especially in this respect, that we destroy our powers of influence. The evil-speaker digs a pit for others, only to fall into the midst of it himself. By his very abuse of his neighbours, he is displaying his own failing, his lack of Christianity. Ready as the world is to listen to scandal and to talk it, I do not think the scandalmonger is often liked or trusted; on the contrary, I am sure that he is generally despised. We have an uneasy feeling that as he talks about other people to us, so he will talk about us to other people. As a social virtue, charity is highly prized, not least by those who do not practise it. Indeed, the world can hardly give higher praise to a man than this: He never spoke an uncharitable word.

Then, secondly, scandal does grievous harm to those who are the victims of it. How can I hurt my brother more than by murdering his reputation?

[4] Good name in man or woman
Is the immediate jewel, of the soul:
Who steals my purse steals trash: ’tis something, nothing,
’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands:
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.

To filch a good name—what an easy thing to do! It is not even necessary that a word should be uttered. An arched eyebrow, a shrugged shoulder, a significant cough, an incredulous expression of countenance, even an emphatic silence, may rob a man of the good opinion of his neighbours, and drive a nail into the coffin of his character. How easy to do, and how frightfully hard to undo!

You may set slander moving, but, however much you may desire it, you may never be able to catch it up. One Gashmu saith it, and another Gashmu repeats it, and a third Gashmu magnifies it, and a fourth Gashmu adds new, circumstances to it. The little chattering rill, fed by a hundred streams, issues at length in the torrent which sweeps everything before it, as it rushes on with resistless power to the sea. “The tongue of a busybody,” says old Bishop Hall, “is like the tail of Samson’s foxes: it carries firebrands, and is enough to set the whole field of the world in a flame.”

Once more, evil-speaking does grievous harm to the whole Church of God, for it gives great occasion to the enemy to blaspheme. “What sort of religion is this,” worldly people say, when they hear us speaking unkindly about one another, “which is constantly preaching [4/5] charity, and constantly failing to practise it? What is the good of a religion which does not even teach a man to curb his tongue?” Or how they point to some chattering, gossiping, backbiting communicant, and they say, “How much better is she for all the time she spends in church for all her services and devotions? She surpasses us all in the abuse of her neighbours.” And so Christ is put to shame, and his cause suffers because of our unfaithfulness. Not only for our own sakes, not only for the sake of our brethren, but most of all for the sake of Christ-and his Church we ought to take to heart the warning of St. James, “If any man among you seemeth to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, that man’s religion is vain.”

I will end this tract with three practical suggestions:

I. Never listen to Gashmu if you can avoid it. If you are deaf, he will soon be dumb. When King Arthur enrolled his knights of the Round Table, he made them take an oath, “To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it.” Especially be wary of listening to Gashmu when he says, as he often does, that what he tells you is “in confidence.” How can you possibly trust a man who has the effrontery to ask you not to repeat to others what he does not mind repeating to you?

2. If it is not possible to avoid listening to Gashmu, at any rate we need never repeat what he tells us. The lamb in the fable noticed that all the footprints pointed towards the lion’s den, none away from it. “Nulla vestigia retrorsum” (no footprints returning). That is [5/6] the best of mottoes with regard to gossip. If needs be that it must come to us, never let it go from us.

3. Lastly and positively, let us make it an unfailing rule that we will not speak about other people unnecessarily, unless we have something to say to their advantage. Do not fall into this very sin of evil-speaking by saying to someone, when you have read this tract, “I must see that Mrs. So-and-So has a copy of this; it is the very thing she needs, for she is always gossiping about her neighbours.” Rather take it home to your own conscience as if it had been written to apply to your individual case. See that you create in your own house, and so far as you can among all your friends, a spirit of intolerance for tale-bearing, and a moral judgment that shall regard it as a mean and wicked thing. And for yourself, make a resolution that if you have not some thing kind to say about others, you will try to hold your tongue. Such a rule is by no means easy to keep. But unless we are doing our best to keep it, we are not really walking in the footsteps of the Master, who has told us that for every idle word that a man speaks, he shall give an account in the Day of Judgment, and who bids us prove our love to him by showing our love to each other.