The calumniator should remember that, besides the fault he commits and the wrong he does to his neighbours, he exposes himself, by a just punishment of God, to be the victim of calumny himself.
[XXVIII]
NINTH PRESERVATIVE
How to check uncharitable conversation in superiors, etc.
WHEN we see charity wounded by persons worthy of respect, keep silent, in order to show your regret, or relate something to the advantage of the absent. If necessary, withdraw.
It is related in the life of Sister Margaret, of the Blessed Sacrament of the Carmelite Order, that when a discourse against charity took place in the house she saw a smoke arise of such suffocating odour that she nearly fainted, and fled immediately to her Divine Master for pardon.
St. Jerome, writing to Nepotian on this subject, says: "Some object that they cannot warn the speaker of his fault without failing in the respect due to him. This excuse is vain, because their eagerness to listen increases his itch for speaking. No one wishes to relate calumnies and murmurs to ears closed with disgust. Is there anyone so foolish as to shoot arrows against a stone wall?" Let your strict silence be a significant and salutary lesson for the detractor. "Have no commerce with those who bite," said Solomon, because perdition is on the eve of overtaking them; and who can tell the disaster and ruin with which the rash detractor and equally blamable listener are threatened?
If it be true, according to the testimony of a religious who was visitor of the houses of his Order, that the virtue against which one can most easily commit a grievous sin in religion is charity; and, according to St. Francis de Sales, sins of the tongue number three-fourths of all sins committed; cannot it be said with equal truth that to refuse to listen to detractors is with one blow to prevent the sin and safeguard charity?
In many cases one can adroitly make known the good qualities and virtues which more than counterbalance the defects related by the defamer. To act thus is to spread about the good odour of Christ.