"But, Mr. Moody," you say, "how can I check myself? how can I overcome
the habit of lying and gossip?" A lady once said to me that she had
got so into the habit of exaggerating that her friends said they could
never understand her.
The cure is simple, but not very pleasant. Treat it as a sin, and
confess it to God and the man whom you have wronged. As soon as you
catch yourself lying, go straight to the person and confess you have
lied. Let your confession be as wide as your transgression. If you
have slandered or lied about any one in public, let your confession be
public. Many a person says some mean, false thing about another in the
presence of others, and then tries to patch it up by going to that
person alone. That is not making restitution. I need not go to God
with confession until I have made it right with that person, if it is
in my power to do so; He will not hear me.
Hannah Moore's method was a sure cure for scandal. Whenever she was
told anything derogatory of another, her invariable reply was:
"Come, we will go and ask if it be true."
The effect was sometimes ludicrously painful. The talebearer was taken
aback, stammered out a qualification, or begged that no notice might
be taken of the statement. But the good lady was inexorable. Off she
took the scandal-monger to the scandalized to make inquiry and compare
accounts.
It is not likely that anybody ventured a second time to repeat a
gossipy story to Hannah Moore.
My friend, how is it? If God should weigh you against this
commandment, would you be found wanting? "Thou shalt not bear false
witness." Are you innocent or guilty?