In conclusion, a few suggestions may be given, which, if taken, may assist in the cure or prevention of this evil disease of the tongue.
1. Consider well the ninth commandment of the Decalogue, which requires you not to bear false witness against your neighbour.
2. Abstain from the company of slanderers. “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.” Slandering is contagious. Slanderers help one another. Prefer being alone, or seek that company in which the slanderer is not admitted.
3. Do not interfere in the affairs of other people, when they do not concern you. “Study to be quiet, and to mind your own business.” This will occupy all your time and attention, and leave you no opportunity of picking up and spreading abroad slanderous tales about your neighbours. The slanderer is very often an idler, and a busy-body in other men’s matters, while his own lie in confusion and tend to ruin. Look at home. Set thy own house in order. Make up thy own accounts. Pay thy own bills. Rectify the disorder of thy own affairs. In doing these things you may find enough to do, without working in the field of slander.
4. Remember that you have your own weak points and failings, as well as he of whom you may utter slanderous things. Were you to use the mirror of reflection, and look into your own life honestly, you would probably see faults which would make you think, “Well, I have plenty of failings of my own, without saying anything about those of others. I have a beam in my own eye to take out, before I attempt to take the mote out of my brother’s. I see that I live in a glass house myself, and must be careful at whom I throw stones. I must wash my own hands in innocency before I complain of others being unclean.”
5. Consider that, as you value your character, other people value their character. As you do not like to be slandered, neither do they. Do, therefore, unto them as you would have them do unto you.
6. Think of the consequences of slander, and if you have a spark of beneficence in your nature, you will avoid the practice of it.
7. It will be as well for you not to imagine yourself of so great importance in the world, and others of such insignificance. Be not high-minded, but fear. It is generally from an eminence of self-importance that the slanderer speaks of those who occupy a position of real and given eminence. If he would step down from that cloudy pedestal, and occupy his own place, he would probably think less of himself and more of others.
8. Give no countenance to the slanderer. Keep your patronage for some one of nobler worth: some one more generous and charitable, more philanthropic and Christian. Give him no entrance into your house. Prefer his room to his company. Write over the doorway of your residence, “No admission for slanderers.” And in case he should find an entrance, inscribe upon the walls of your rooms what St. Augustine inscribed upon his,—
“He that doth love on absent friends to jeer
May hence depart, no room is for him here.”