Evil-speaking.
Part of the Christian life has to do with the tongue, and looking at it in its social aspect, the greatest part. The ways in which the sin forbidden in the text may be committed are legion, and time would fail us in any attempt to give them even the barest enumeration.
I. The first and most absolute form in which we can speak evil of a brother is by uttering against him a wilfully false accusation. One could have wished, for the sake of the honour of our race, that such a deliberate sin had been impossible; but unfortunately it is so common and inveterate that a special law against it was uttered on Sinai, and written on the stony tablet by the finger of God. And of all sinners in the world, the liar is the greatest and the most hopeless. While every sin is bad enough, and needs the special mercy of Heaven for its forgiveness and the special help of Heaven for its cure and abandonment, lying seems to go deeper into the heart and to taint it more thoroughly than any other. And there is this terrible peculiarity about it, that, while it is a sin in itself, it is also a shield for every other sin. Lying often takes the form of evil-speaking; and then you have a double evil, an evil compounded of malice and falsehood. Every stone of falsehood we put into the walls of the temple of truth will crumble; its colour will strike through whatever paint we may put upon it; and the great Architect will have it taken down and replaced by a stone of truth.
II. Another form of evil speaking is that of exaggerating faults that are real. While there has been an immense sacrifice of truth, there has been, on the part of the thoughtless romancers, an entire oblivion of the golden law, "Dounto others as ye would that they should do unto you."
III. Another way in which men speak evil one of another is by the unnecessary repetition of real faults. He that is without fault, let him first cast a stone at a faulty man. Of all species of conversation, there is none which is less profitable than that which consists of a morbid dissection of other men's characters.
IV. Another manner in which men speak evil of each other is by a sort of mock sorrow.Under the hypocritical guise of pity and abhorrence of sin, they indulge in the mischievous yet too common propensity to publish the failings of some erring brother.
V. Another manner in which men speak evil of each other is by misrepresenting language, motive, or circumstances. The extent to which this special form of evil-speaking goes on is such that it may well create great distrust in any story we hear. Things may sometimes be worse than the rumour, but in the majority of cases I am persuaded they are not half so bad. We are not to speak evil of each other because we are brethren, and because to speak evil of our brother is to speak evil of the law which commands us to love our brother. Let us jealously guard each other's reputations, each looking to it that his reputation shall be worth the guarding.
E. Mellor, In the Footsteps of Heroes,p. 138.