SERMON 2
From Posthumous Works
[No date is attached either to this sermon or to that which immediately succeeds it. The state however of the manuscripts, and the style of the penmanship, (which from the marked changes it undergoes at different successive stages is almost of itself a sufficient guide,) as well as certain internal evidences, carry with them the conviction that these two sermons were among the very earliest of Dr. Chalmers pulpit preparations.]
JAMES IV. 2. "Speak not evil one of another, brethren.
He that speaketh evil of his brother, and jndgeth his brother, speaketh evil of
the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thon art not a doer of
the law, but a judge".
"It is not calumny to speak evil of another
when the evidence of his guilt is undeniable, and when it is necessary to
defend the young against the dangers of his example. It is not calumny to deal
out to vice its infamy and its correction - to hold it up to the terror and the
execration of the neighbourhood - to lay open the secret recesses of hypocrisy
- or to unmask the dissimulations of injustice. If this is to be denounced as
calumny, vice will reign triumphant in the world, public opinion will lose its
energy, deceit and profligacy will have nothing to fear from the resentment of
indignation; they will lift an unabashed countenance in the face of day, and
lord it in insolent security. Some are for carrying the victory of candour to a
disgusting and an affected extremity. I hate that candour that would control
the risings of a generous indignation, where guilt is open and unquestionable;
that candour which can ape Christian charity, while it looks with patience on
the oppressions or triumphs of injustice; that candour which can maintain a
regulated composure of aspect, though it sees virtue in disgrace, and vice
enthroned in the honours of preferment; that well-bred accommodation which can
smile equally on all, and sit in contentment amid the general decay of worth
and principle. a man as this passes for a lover of peace, an excellent member
of society, who never thinks of disturbing our repose by his own offensive and
turbulent invectives - who never obtrudes offensive peculiarities of temper or
of opinion - who never acts the firebrand of mischief, but suffers us to
proceed in quietness.
But to complete the picture, this good-natured
accomodating man has sometimes an interest to mind, which requires him, on the
other hand, to yield to the reigning corruppress the credit and pretensions of
ritual. Let us observe the plan which this enemy to evil-speaking and to
everything that is violent and intemperate, let us observe the plan he pursues
to time it to purposes. This pattern of Christian temper will find it necessary
to throw out his insinuations, but then he will do it with decency; he will
betray no rash or unguarded violence; trample on no established ceremonial; he
will speak "eas and smile complacency on the victim of his resentment; he will
honour him with the attentions of politeness, share with him the hour of mirth
and conviviality.
Some feelings of malignity may rankle in his bosom -
but then he does offend by the ostentation of them. Some secret mischief may be
brooding in his intentions, but then he does not alarm by his menaces. Whatever
is calculated to agitate or terrify he kindly withdraws from his observation,
and delights him by manners and civility, though he find it convenient at times
to make free with his character - propagate in secret the tale of infamy; set
all his his low rabble of emissaries on the work of misrepresention - and
awaken the contempt or hostility of a deluded public. Yet such is the false
estimate of calumny, which pervades these scenes of interest and competition -
where the artifices of mere policy have perverted every sentiment of justice,
and crushed every genuine and unaffected feeling of the heart - where the
indignation of a mind at glaring and acknowledged guilt, is ascribed to the
working of a foul-mouthed malignity - while not a man appears to lift the voice
of remonstrance against the character of him who, under the semblances of a
smooth exterior, will spread his deceitful insinuations and work the ruin and
disgrace of the upright. The guilt of calumny lies in the three following
circumstances:
First, in the imperfection of that evidence upon which the
calumny is founded.
Second, in the injury it does to the unhappy
victim.
Third, in its prejudicial effects upon the general interests of
virtue.
First, then, as to the imperfection of the evidence. There are
some actions which carry villany on the very face of them, and which can meet
with no quarter even from the meekness of charity - such as the foulness of a
murder, the infamy of artful and deliberate seduction, the desertion of a
parent who is left by the ingratitude of his children to the solitude and
helplessness of age, the brazen effrontery of falsehood, which can rejoice in
the success of its artifices, and laugh at the unsuspecting simplicity of the
virtuous. There are other actions where the merit is ambiguous or uncertain,
and this is the favourite field for the exercise of calumny. When a man
relieves a beggar in the street, it may be the impulse of generous emotion, but
Calumny will tell you that it is the vanity of ostentation.
When a man
stops short in the career of prosperity, and resigns himself to the mercy of
his creditors, it may be the cruelty of misfortune, but Calumny will tell you
of his concealed treasure, of his fictitious entries, of his sly and artful
evasions. When a man gives himself to mirth and to company, it may be the
innocent act of a convivial and benevolent heart, but Calumny will tell you of
his midnight excess, of his habitual licentiousness, of his extravagant
dissipation. When we hear in the house the music of family devotion, it may be
in the spirit of old and respectable piety, but calumny will tell you of the
rigour of puritanical solemnity, or the disgusting mask of the hypocrite.
When a man is prosecuting the claims of justice, it may be with all the
purity of upright and honourable intentions, but calumny will tell you that it
is the gripe of avarice or the insolence of oppression. Where candour would
hesitate, calumny assumes the tone of authority. Where candour would demand
proof and investigation, calumny gives her confident decisions. Where candour
is for waiting in silence and suspending her judgments, calumny draws her
precipitate inference, and indulges in all the temerity of invective. Where
candour is for checking the progress of a malicious report as unwarranted by
evidence, calumny renews all her efforts and gives fresh activity to the
circulation. Where the merit of an action is disguised uncertainty of its
evidence, or the ambiguity of itscomplexion, candour always gives her decision
on the side of mercy, but it is the delight of calumny to give it a dark
malignant colouring, and to send it round to reprobation. You must all have
observed the succssive additions that are given to the tale of scandal as it
through a neighbourhood. They sometimes proceed from malice, but oftener I
believe from an idle gossiping proceeding from the love of being listened to
with astonishment - the want not of heart and tenderness, but from the want of
cautious and reflecting prudence - from the hurry and advertence of the moment
when acquaintances meet and the happy hour is given to thoughtlessness and to
gaiety.
Let it remembered, however, that thoughtlessness is criminal
when employed in giving currency to falsehood - when it tends mislead society
on a matter of such sacred importance as the character of one of its members -
when it consigns the upright to shame and to infamy - when it sets up the hasty
cry of execraration in cases where the evidence is uncertain, and candour tells
us to forbear.
The action whioh calumny condemns in its unhappy victim
should be attributed to him with hesitation, because in each step of its
progress the story is apt to gain an addition from the mistakes of the
inconsiderate, or from the fabrications of a deliberate malignity. The motive
from which the action is said to have originated should if possible be assigned
with still greater hesitation, because it lies in the heart - it hides in a
vail of impenetrable secrecy - it is unseen by every eye save Omniscience - it
is written on no record save the book of judgment - it remains untold till that
awful day when the universe shall hear it - when the worlds shall assemble
round our Redeemer's throne, and listen to the revelations of justice. There is
no subject that demands more time and more investigation than a question of
character; yet how seldom do men think of suspending their judgment - how rash
and how presumptuous in their decisions - how prone to malicious interpretation
in cases that are ambiguous - how fond of indulging in the eloquence of
invective, and how elated with the malignant I pleasure of throwing ridicule on
the absent, and sending the tale of detraction through the country.
It
is a peculiarity which you must all have observed, that where the case is
positively uncertain the general propensity is to give it on the side of
condemnation - to attach to it the most malignant construction of which it is
susceptible - to dress it up in the colours of in famy, and to give all the
confidence of truth to what are at best but the fancies of a suspicious temper.
It is in this way that the world is ever doing the grossest injustice to
individuals - that the innocent are at times repelled by the scowl of suspicion
- that virtue labours under the contempt of a deluded people - that the man
whose heart rises in all the warmth of affection can often meet with no eye of
kindness to cheer him, no friend to enlighten the solitude of his bosom. There
is a worth that escapes the eye of an unthinking world - a deed of exalted
charity that they never hear of - a tear of secret affection that shrinks from
notice, and courts the indulgence of retirement - a life spent in unseen acts
of beneficence which are only recorded in the book of heaven. To all this the
world is a stranger; it sees not the heart; it forms its estimate upon the
appearances of a delusive exterior; it overlooks the intention, and in the
temerity of its heedless decisions, will lacerate and deform the best of
characters. The world is the slave of manners. It will love you if you can put
on the smiling countenance of affection; it will give you credit for a social
and benevolent heart if you can lead your company to and maintain the frank and
open air of an undissembled mirth.
But how many of the first of our
race are incapable of manner - are oppressed by the embarrassments of modesty -
shrink from the observation of the world - give themselves the silence of an
awkward timidity, and under the of a cold and unpromising exterior, are
received in every company with the frowns of antipathy and disgust. The
character of such a man is not known beyond the little circle and of his family
- of those poor whom his bounty sustains, and those cottages which his charity
enlightens. He lives to obscurity and dies in forgetfulness; no epitaph to
blazen his virtues - bo pomp of heraldry to embalm his remembrance. his death
is never heard of among the tidings of the narket-place. His only memorial is
the memorial of simple and un-noticed virtue - the tears of his children, and
the rreget of his humble neighbourhood.
Let the sense of. our ignorance
restrain a disposition to rash and unthinking calumny. The action is often
transformed by the errors of inadvertence, or the artifices of a wilful
misrepresentation.
The motive is as often disguised from the secret
and unknown circumstances on which it is founded. To tell the motive we must
fathom the mysteries of the heart which sits in invisible retirement, and
eludes the penetration of mortals. In deciding upon a partial view of
circumstances we run the risk of a total misconception; the addition of a
single fact will often suffice to reverse the judgment we had formed, and to
convince us that that action is laudable which, of our unthinking ignorance, we
had before pronounced to be criminal
When a man shuts himself up in
retirement and abstains from the expenses of hospitality, calumny will denounce
him as an avaricious and unsocial character; but calumny should stop its mouth
when it hears that all the savings ofthis this frugality are given to support
the infirmity of an aged parent. When a man gives up the laborious exercises of
his employment, and becomes an humble dependent on the charity of others,
calumny will instantly ascribe it to the love of ease and of indolence; but
calumny should soften its decision when it hears that his strength is wasted by
the secret and unnoticed visitations of disease. When a man keeps back from the
celebration of a sacrament, calumny will talk of his impious contempt for
ordinances; but calumny should assume a milder tone when it hears that under
the death of a beloved child he has withdrawn himself to the grief of solitude,
and labours under all the agitations of a dark and disordered melancholy. When
a man turns away from solicitations of charity, calumny may say that it is the
gripe of avarice; but calumny should reserve its sentence when it hears that he
is on the eve of falling in the tide of bankruptcy, and that he will surrender
the wreck of his fortune to satisfy time higher claims of justice and of his
creditors.
Ignorant then as we are of motives and of circumstances, we
should learn to be cautious and hesitating on a question of character, to check
every slanderous and malignant propensity, to feel how much is due to truth and
justice, and if not able to hush, to abhor the tale of infamy. Let us at least
withdraw our countenance from its propagation, and blush to prostitute our
testimony to the unsupported assertions of a petty and contemptible scandal
What can be said of those who sit in close convention and plot the massacre of
a virtuous reputation, who delight to survey human nature in its most odious
and degrading attitudes, who look with an exulting eye over the deformed
exhibitions of vice and folly, who seem to feast on the melancholy picture of
another's guilt, whose ears are only opened to the tale of detraction, and
whose mouths are only opened to traduce and to vilify? If anything can add to
our indignation it is the midnight and impenetrable secrecy under which these
proceedings are conducted, the artful insinuations they practise against him
whom they have singled out as the victim of their calumny, the cowardly
advantages that they take of his absence, the smile of affection and civility
which they can force into their countenance, while their heart is brooding over
the most dark and malignant purposes.
Let it be remembered that we may
be guilty of calumny without speaking evil. This is the most odious and
disgusting of calumny; not an open and intrepid assertion, but a cowardly
insinuation, a hint, a sneaking indirect artifice, an expression of regret, a
distant allusion to set malignity to time of conjecture, and to awaken the
suspicion of your company. This is calumny in fact, though not in form. It is
to be accompanied with all the mischief of calumny. It sufficient foundation
for a tale to circulate through the country; an impression to run through all
the workshops of scandal in the neighbourhood, a groundwork from which a
diseased fancy will conjure up its images of guilt and of profligacy, a report
which however trifling in its commencement, will rise through successive
additions to a ruinous and malignant falsehood. Let the tale of detraction be
listened to with distrust. much is to be deducted; all the errors that
gradually creep into misrepresentations from the inaccuracy of the careless; or
the knowing and deliberate fabrications of the malignant; all the errors that
proceed from our ignorance of other circumstances by which the merit of the
action may be most essentially affected; and above all, the errors that proceed
from ignorance of the heart, and of its secret and unfathomable mysteries.
Such is the openness of the public ear to the tale of detraction that
calumny is too often successful even in her most base and unprincipled efforts.
No virtue however exalted can escape her foul and pestilential attacks; she can
array the loveliness of innocence in the garb of infamy, and turn the scowl
every eye against the most pure and upright and gentle of characters. This is
an awful combination of wickedness, the combination of malignity and falsehood
- a combination against all that is sacred in truth, and all that is endearing
in domestic tranquillity - a combination against the happiness of families and
the peace of society - a combination against the reign of virtue in the wor1d,
and against the best comforts which cheer and alleviate the lot of
humanity.
This leads me to the second head of discourse - The sufferings
which calumny inflicts upon its unhappy victim. All are born to feel the
salutary control of public opinion. It is a most powerful engine for the
preservation of virtue. Men will compass sea and land to gain the applause of
their countrymen. Enough for them the reward of honourable distinction. It is
the voice of glory to which they listen, and the voice is omnipotent. It is to
the inspiration of her voice that we owe all that is exalted in patriotism, in
war, in philosophy. For her the statesman will bravely maintain his integrity,
and to be the man of the people he will renounce the favour of princes and the
gains of a petty ambition. For her the commander will meet death with a
fearless countenance, and eye with intrepid composure the scenes of blood and
of violence into which he is entering. For her the student sits by the light of
the midnight taper, and in the animating anticipations of future eminence can
renounce without a sigh the charms of indolence and of gaiety.
Even to
the home-bred walks of life and of business the voice of glory is not a
stranger. You will meet with ambition in the lowest cottages of the country.
Its aim is humble, but it is only the obscurity of circumstances which
restrains it. In kind and in character it is the same with that ambition which
figures to the eye of the world on a more exalted theatre - the same unwearied
and persevering constancy in the prosecution of its object, the same jealousy
of reputation, the same insatiable appetite for applause, the same triumphant
elevation in the moment of success, the same misery under the sufferings of
disappointment. To see man it is not necessary to traverse all countries, or to
witness all the varieties of religion and government. It is not necessary to
step beyond the limits of the little town town or hamlet in which Providence
has placed you. You will meet with all the elements of human character in the
rustic abodes of simplicity and nature. You will there meet with that ambition
which if placed in a higher sphere would scatter disorder among the nations,
and strive to control the destiny of empires. You will meet with that cruelty
which, if at the head of a victorious army, would carry outrage and violence
iimto the habitations of the innocent, and kindle in malignant joy at the
barbarity of war. You will, meet with that avarice which, if elevated to the
management of a province, would fill the country with taxation, and flourish on
the distress and poverty of millions. You will also meet with the more virtuous
and honourable propensities of the mind, with that goodness which in a higher
sphere would have risen to an exalted patriotism, with that contempt for the
disgraceful.which would have lifted its voice against the measures of a corrupt
and degenerate policy, with that firmness which would have withstood the frown
of power and the fury of popular commotion.
But to return from this
digression. What in the higher stations of society is called respect for the
public opinion, is in humbler and more contracted spheres called respect for
the neighbourhood. Respect for the opinion of others is a constant and
irresistable principle in the human constitution. To distain it is to boast of
an affected independence; it is an effusion of vanity; it is an idle pretence
to a stoical and romantic elevation of character. Not a man, I will venture to
say, but feels his dependence on public opinion. Even armed with the
consciousness of integrity he feels himself compelled to pay homage at its
shrine. You will seldom, I may say you will never, meet with an example of
independence solitary and unsupported - an independence founded exclusively
upon the consciousness of virtue and the silent reflecion of a desolate and
unbefriended bosom - an independence that can brave the scowl of every eye and
the desertion of all acquaintances.
A man of firm and independent energy at
times will appear who can stand before the eye of the world in the manly and
intrepid attitude of defiance; but I contend that this energy is supported from
without. It is supported by testimony of some selected person on whose esteem
he places his pride and his enjoyment; it is supported by the anticipation of
that day when the eyes of the public shall be opened, and their curses
converted into admiration and gratitude; it is supported, in fact, by that very
respect for public opinion which he now professes to disown, and of which his
proceedings would speak him to be totally divested. But take him from the last
remnants of his friends, take from him his last refuge against the malignity of
an unthinking world, give him no eye of welcome to which he may retire from the
persecutions of injustice, let every countenance bear hatred against him, and
let there be no voice of kindness to alleviate the gloom of his solitude, he
will fall even though encompassed with the armour of virtue; the accumulated
weight of infamy will be unsupportable to him; he will pine away in the anguish
of desertion, and welcome the silence of the grave as his only retreat from the
horrors of this world's cruelty.
Let the severity of the world's
opinion then be reserved as the punishment and the correction of vice. But
calumny directs this severity against the virtuous. Calumny dooms the upright
to contempt and infamy. Calumny tramples on all distinctions of character, and
makes any man a victim to her malicious artifices. To take away a good name is
to take away the dearest privilege of integrity. It is to take away the last
consolation of the unfortunate. It is to take away that generous pride which
glows even in the poor man's bosom, and supports the vigour of his purposes.
Ask him who has gone through life, and felt its vicissitudes, who has outlived
the wreck of his circumstances, and is forced in the evening of his days to
descend to the humble tenement of poverty - he will tell you that he has not
lost all while his character remains to him - that he still inherits the best
gift which providence can bestow - the sympathy of an affectionate
neighbourhood. Dreary is the winter of his age, but it has the homage of a
sincere esteem to soothe and to enlighten it. Sad is the fall of his family;
but why should they feel themselves degraded? - none can impeach their honesty
or attach dishonour to their name. To the eye of sentiment, a man like this
appears more respectable than even in his better days of opulence and comfort.
We venerate the grey hairs of the unfortunate - of him who bears up with
cheerfulness against the hardships which heaven has inflicted - of him who
retires in silence and gives the remainder of his years to peaceful obscurity,
who spends the evening of his life in humble and uncomplaining patience, whom
experience has taught wisdom, and wisdom has taught the exalted lessons of
contentment and piety. To pursue the unfortunate with calumny is to give the
last aggravation to their sufferings.
It is to make them poor indeed.
It is to add to the pangs of that heart that is already wrung with the cruelty
of misfortune. It is removing the only support that is left to them hi this
dark and uncertain world. It is to bestrew with thorns that weary journey which
it has pleased heaven to make otherwise so painful There are some minds of
peculiar sensibility which cannot withstand the scowl of prejudice and disdain,
to whom dislike is painful, and whose every joy withers away at the glance of
coldness. How severe to such is the rude touch of calumny! How cruel to
withdraw the smiles of affection from him whose every purpose is conceived in
the spirit of benevolence, to sting by coarse imputations the delicacy of his
bosom, to distress by an unkind look that heart which breathes all the soul
honesty.
To a man of kind intentions the frown of hatred is
insupportable. He knows that he does not deserve it, and he feels its
injustice. Heaven can witness his integrity, and it is hard that the world
should be to him a widerness, or that the tranquillity of his life should be
outraged by the effects of a malignant calumny. I do not say that world in its
unkind treatment of virtue is actuated by a actuated by a spirit of wanton
cruelty: I impute it to rash and unthinking ignorance; I regard it as a dupe to
the malicious artifices of who have an interest in misleading the public
opinion, in tarnishing the honours of an upright and respectable character.
When the world is undeceived, it is ever ready to do justice to those whom it
has injured by its opinion - to sympathise with them in their unmerited
sufferings - to assert the cause of disgraced and persecuted virtue, and to
raise the voice of a generous indignation against the arts of an unfeeling
calumny. But how often does it happen that the world is never undeceived ; that
prejudice has shut its ears against the representations of the candid; that the
remonstrances of the injured are never listened to; that they are given to the
wind; that they are never heard till he reach the grave's peaceful retreat,
unbosom his sorrows to that heavenly witness who has seen all his griefs and
all his errors? The public mind of every free country is generous, and ready to
award to the deserving its tribute of admiration and gratitude. But though the
public mind be generous, it is the. slave of prejudice and misconception. It
takes its tone from the reigning system of policy and of opinion. In the hands
of the artful, it can be fashioned into an instrument of injustice,
persecution, and revenge.
The history of our own country furnishes
innumerable examples of men consigned to infamy and to desertion for having
uttered a sentiment offensive to the reigning politics of the day - for having
given way to time warmth of an honest enthusiasm - for rising in all the ardour
of an exalted patriotism - for lifting up their voice and their testimony
against time measures of a corrupt and domineering influence. I do not say that
when the public combine against the fame or the interest of such a character
they do it in the spirit of malignity. They are deceived. They are the dupes of
imposture. A false alarm is made to occupy the public ear. The ardour of
patriotism is stigmatized as the turbulence of rebellion. We at times hear of
men lying under a cloud. Trace the ignominy of these men to its foundation, and
you will often find that it originates in a political artifice - in a cry set
up by an interested combination of enemies - in the unprincipled hostility of
the powerful against an obnoxious individual - in the virulent and rancorous
malignity of a domineering party.
Examples of this kind are not
confined to the great theatre of political contention. You will meet with it in
every petty district of the country - in our towns where ancient integrity is
disgraced, and a putrid electioneering morality deals calumny against the
virtuous; in our corporations where monopoly reigns triumphant, and envy and
interest combine to crush the independence of an aspiring character; and in all
those numerous departments of life and of business where the eagerness of
competition stirs up every wicked passion of the heart, and throws it loose
from the restraints of principle. The mischief of calumny is not confined to
the object against which it is directed. It invades the peace of his family;
its cruelty descends to the youngest of his children who can blush at a
father's disgrace, or whose little bosom can fire indignant at the aspersion of
a father's integrity. A parent's reputation is a sacred inheritance. It
reflects lustre on all his connexions. His children lift their heads in triumph
amid the ills of poverty and misfortune. They carry him to the grave, but the
remembrance of his example remains with them - it proves the guardian of their
integrity; corruption in vain offers her allurements, principle within them
that proves at once their pride and their protection - it is the image of that
departed father whom they study to emulate and to admire.
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