• Author: Unknown
• Editor: B-7413
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 5
• Page Number:
• Date: 4 26 1916
• Tags:
• advice

KINDNESS OF SILENCEWith out doubt it is always best to be silent of the faults of our neighbor. Evidently such is the thought of the writer in The, Castle who goes on to say: That the kindliness of silence is something we might all bestow much more frequently than we do. Granted that we do not indulge in scandal, that when we know of the distress and disgrace that have fallen on a friend's household in the wrongdoing of one of its members, we tell the tale only pityingly and with every extenuating circumstance yet why tell it all? If it were one of our own who had stumbled into misery or sin, if one dear to us had yield to sudden temptation, if our home had been rent with bitterness and dissension, would not the first impulse—a right and natural impulse—be to hide the hurt and stain from every human eye? Would we not bless the friendship that, so far as possible closed its eyes and sealed its lips, and that could be trusted not to repeat it perforce has seen and heard? Surely this is a place where the Golden Rule might have much wider practice than it has—the shielding of others by silence, doing as we would be done by. Whenever certain individuals attempt to involve another in their delirium, they should be answered with a smile of contempt.