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.
_Be cautious after hearing uncharitable conversation_
AFTER having heard uncharitable words, observe the following precautions given by the Saints:
2. Believe all the good you hear, but believe only the bad you see. Malice does the contrary. It demands proofs for good reports, but believes bad reports on the slightest grounds. Out of every thousand reports one can scarcely be found accurate in all its details. When, as a rule of prudence, Superiors are told to believe only half of what they hear, to consider the other half, and still suspect the remaining part, what rule should be prescribed for inferiors?
When the act is evidently blameworthy, suppose a good intention, or at least one not so bad as apparent, leaving to God what He reserves to Himself the judgment of the heart; or consider it as the result of surprise, inadvertence, human frailty, or the violence of the temptation. Never come to hasty conclusions-- _e.g._, "He is incorrigible; as he is, so will he always be." Expect everything from grace, efforts, and time.