thing of one party in a quarrel which we know to be correct, and report it to the other, though it was never intended to be repeated. This rouses angry passions and renews the old battle. Immense harm is done by merely inconsiderate gossip. When an element of spite is added and there is I\ deliberate attempt to aggravate a quarrel, the conduct of the tale-bearer is simply diabolical. 2. It is likely to be exaggerated. Most tales, like snowballs, grow as they proceed. Passing from one to another, they are unintentionally exaggerated. Surmise and inference are mixed up with the original narrative as part of the·story. Rhetorical point is gained at the expense of accuracy. IV. IT IS THE DUTY •. OF THE CHRISTIAN TO ALLAY STRIFE. Ilis should be the blessedness of the peacemaker (Matt. v. 9). If we have Christian love we shall desire to do this, for charity covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet. iv. 8). Immense harm would be prevented by the merely negative course of refraining from repeating all words that have the slightest tendency to provoke ill will between other people. '£here is virtue in reticence. Silence here is indeed golden. But sometimes we should go further, and endeavour to make the best of people to one another, and so to heal quarrels. V. No TALE-DEARER CAN REVIVE THE STRIFE BETWEEN THE SOUL AND Goo. If there be no more fuel, this will vanish. God desires to be reconciled with his children. If they will but lay down their arms, the old qnallfel will cease at once. 1. God knows the worst of us. He knows all. Therefore he never makes discoveries that will rouse his wrath against our pardoned past. 2. Be cannot be misled by deceivers. Tale-bearers may malign our character before men, never before God. 3. The only thing to continue our strife with God is to continue our rebellious lives. While we seek peace, peace i~ secure. . Ver. 27.-0aught in one's own snare. One man may be supposed to have dug a pit in some dark place in the road, or to have concealed it by covering it with boughs and earth-like an Indian tiger-trap-so that he may catch some wild animal, or perhaps make a prisoner or a victim of his enemy. Then, not heeding its whereabouts, be falls into his own snare. Another may be rolliug a stone against his enemy, when it falls back aad crushes the author of the mischief. Consider first some cases in which these things might happen, and then the principle that underlies them. I. INSTANCES. 1. The deceiver. The pit is a snare. It is meant to deceive. Those who deceive others are likely to be deceived. They brand and blind the faculty of truth. They acclimatize themselves in a zone of falsehood. In the very belief that they think this well for them, they prove themselves deluded. 2. The swindler. 'l'his man may entrap unwary folk who trust his offers, and at first ho may thrive and fatten on his ill-gotten gains; but his success is almost sure to be short-lived. Swinrllers rarely prosper till old age. 3. The tempter. One who imitates the work of the devil may have the devil's wicked triumph over weakness and ignorance. He may succeed in luting his victims to shame and ruin, and be may find a hellish glee in the Bwful ease with which he overcomes their virtue. But he is a short-sighted self-deceiver. '!'here is a pit prepared for the devil and his angels, and the temp tor is one of the latter. Satan makes bell, and every tempter prepBres his own pit of destruction. 4. The opponent of Ghrist. The Jews rejected their Lord and laid snares for catching him. He wBs ben to reply, and turned the shame on the head of each party in sttccession -Pharisee, Sadducee, Herodian. In the end they accomplished his death. But they were punished in the frightful overthrow of their city. The world's rejection of Chri~t would mean the world's ruin. Every soul that plots against the kingdom of heaven unwarily plots for its own undoing. II. 'l'HE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLE. This principle is that sin brings its own retribution, There is no need for the conception of a Deus e:r; machind. No bemlds of justice are wanted to proclaim the guilt of the offender; no heavenly executioners with flaming swords are required to bring swift vengeance on the guilty. If only the foolish sinner is left to himself, he will certainly reap the fatal consequences of his wickedness. Sin is naturally fatal. "Whatsoever a man sowetb, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flosh reap corruption." 'fhe vile harvest of death grows in the soil of .the man's own life. He is his own executioner. No doubt this terrible fact is based on a Divine decree that lies deeply embedded in the very constitution of the universe. 'l'hereforo, ns the forest traveller unconsciously makes :i. circuit and 608 THE PROVERBS, [on. x:tn 1-28,
returns to his old camp-fire, so the sinner comes back to his own evil deeds, but to find them now as snares to entrap him and stones to crush him,