Scandal is malice.  It should be a felony, even though the weapon is “only” words.  Every person who spreads scandal,
instantly pays a steep price for passing it on.  The price is becoming jaded to the truely honorable and beautiful parts of life and the world.
A person like that will fail to experience the joy of charity.  They think every act of others comes from the lowest imaginable motive.  They don’t believe in the admirable qualities in other people.  They don’t understand how people can act in noble ways because they themselves lack any nobility of their own.
They’re like carrion flies.  Carrion flies will pass over a flower garden to feast on a piece of rancid meat!  They’ve acquired the nose and the taste for the distasteful food they eat.  The person who repeats scandal has also aquired a nose for the distasteful.
Night after night, damaged people may cry themselves to sleep.  Strong and noble hearts suffer in silence.  There are many gentle, sensitive people whose souls have been burned and warped.  Long-time friends have gone their separate ways.
All their hope is gone. Memories of what should have been haunt their thoughts.  There are bitter misunderstandings that make life appear bleak, dreary, and not worth living.  And this is only a short list of the many felonies and misdomeaners of word crimes.
A virtuous and honest man always stands up for what he believes in.  He has taken the time to get to know himself very well.  He would never consider a diabolical plan that lets evil appear where earlier, nothing but good existed.
It only takes a few casual words of scandal or a knowing look of the eyes, to make once friendly hands grow cold.  A warm caring smile gets replaced by a sneer.  There you stand.  Alone with a dazed feeling of insecurity from a vague, intangible something that has caused it all.  And you can’t figure out where it all began.
Tomorrow, Why bad news travels so fast…