h fancies with a lot of
facts, pass them on unsuspecting credulity that takes all or none. If
you do not think well of another, and the occasion demand it, speak it
out; but make it known that it is your individual judgment and give
your reasons for thus opining.

The desperate character of calumny is that, while it must be repaired,
as we shall see later, the thing is difficult, often impossible;
frequently the reparation increases the evil instead of diminishing it.
The slogan of unrighteousness is: "Calumniate, calumniate, some of it
will stick!" He who slanders, lies; he who lies once may lie again, a
liar is never worthy of belief, whether he tells the truth or not, for
there is no knowing when he is telling the truth. One has the right to
disbelieve the calumniator when he does wrong or when he tries to undo
it. And human nature is so constructed that it prefers to believe in
the first instance and to disbelieve in the second.

You may slander a community, a class as well as an individual. It is
not necessary to charge all with crime; it is sufficient so to
manipulate your words that suspicion may fall on any one of said class
or community. If the charge be particularly heinous, or if the body of
men be such that all its usefulness depends on its reputation, as is
the case especially with religious bodies, the malice of such slander
acquires a dignity far above the ordinary.

The Church of God has suffered more in the long centuries of her
existence from the tongue of slander than from sword and flame and
chains combined. In the mind of her enemies, any weapon is lawful with
which to smite her, and the climax of infamy is reached when they
affirm, to justify their dishonesty, that they turn Rome's weapons
against her. There is only one answer to this, and that is the silence
of contempt. Slander and dollars are the wheels on which moves the
propaganda that would substitute Gospel Christianity for the
superstitions of Rome. It is slander that vilifies in convention and
synod the friars who did more for pure Christianity in the Philippines
in a hundred years than the whole nest of their revilers will do in ten
thousand. It is slander that holds up to public ridicule the
congregations that suffer persecution and exile in France in the name
of liberty, fraternity, etc. It is slander that the long-tailed
missionary with the sanctimonious face brings back from the countries
of the South with which to regale the minds