"Whose edge is sharper than a sword; whose tongue Out-venoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie All corners of the world; kings, queens, and states, Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave This viperous slander enter." Iago is said to be the greatest villain in fiction or history; the revolting crimes of Herod--slaughtering the innocent--does not compare with Iago. Herod saw in the Man Child a possible rival, and blinded by jealousy and ambition, he becomes the most heartless murderer--of all times. But what was the crime of Iago? Slander! With no object in view, no advantage to gain, and too much of a coward to make an open charge, he slanders by insinuation the beautiful Desdemona until the enraged Othello strangles her to death. How can we reconcile this base passion in human character, as slander has no other avenue of expression? It is unnatural, inhuman, and hellish. The wolf and tiger devour to satisfy hunger; the vulture eats and fattens on rotting carcases, but the slanderer does neither. With the blood cruelty of a savage beast, the degraded appetite of the scavenger, the destroyed victims of fiendish passion only intensify and burn, but never satisfy the slanderer. This spirit was never born among men; its origin is the region of the damned, where hunger gnaws, thirst fires, lust arouses, revenge consumes--but satisfaction is unknown. The hot breath of slander comes from a bourne where dead hopes spring up eternal. The caption of the chapter denominates the Devil as the arch slanderer; we use it because there is no word of sufficient strength to convey the idea; "arch" fails to convey the whole truth in this case. Archangel is an intelligible term, as there are many of high order; there is, however, but One slanderer. Just as he is the "father of liars"--propagating all lies--his relation to liars does not admit of comparison. He slandered from the day of his fall; he is the father of slanderers. Whether it be circulated in the "submerged world," the quiet circles of church life, or among the "Four Hundred" of fashion--it is a deflected arrow from the one great quiver. No being--holy men, angels, or the Son of God--can escape the tongues dripping the venom of slander through the subtle incarnation of that fountainhead of every evil suggestion or insinuation. Whatever destroys happiness, creates doubt and suspicion among the people, ending in litigation, divorces, and murders, fulfills the mission of slander. The caldron from which exudes this vile stench--filling all the earth--is seething and boiling in the Bottomless Pit, or wherever the throne of his majesty--the Devil--is located. The society of earth will never be free from the poison of evil-speaking until the Archslanderer is arrested, chained, and located in the penitentiary prepared for him from the foundation of the world. XII THE DOUBLE ACCUSER