The man who breaks into my dwelling, or meets me on the public
road and robs me of my property, does me injury. He stops me on
the way to wealth, strips me of my hard-earned savings, involves
me in difficulty, and brings my family to penury and want. But
he does me an injury that can be repaired. Industry and economy
may again bring me into circumstances of ease and affluence. The
man who, coming at the midnight hour, fires my dwelling, does
me an injury--he burns my roof, my pillow, my raiment, my very
shelter from the storm and tempest; but he does me an injury
that can be repaired. The storm may indeed beat upon me, and
chilling blasts assail me, but Charity will receive me into her
dwelling, will give me food to eat, and raiment to put on; will
timely assist me, raising a new roof over the ashes of the old,
and I shall again sit by my own fireside, and taste the sweets
of friendship and of home. But the man who circulates false
reports concerning my character, who exposes every act of my
life which may be represented to my disadvantage, who goes first
to this, then to that individual, tells them he is very tender
of my reputation, enjoins upon them the strictest secrecy, and
then fills their ears with hearsays and rumors, and, what is
worse, leaves them to dwell upon the hints and suggestions of
his own busy imagination--the man who thus “filches from me
my good name,” does me an injury which neither industry, nor
charity, nor time itself can repair.--_Catholic Telegraph._
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