The highest manifestation of this talker in regard to men consists in bearing false witness against a neighbour; charging him with things of which he is not guilty: as in the case of those who said, "Naboth did blaspheme God and the king," when he had not done so. Thus did the slanderer speak against David: "False witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty;" "They laid things to my charge that I knew not." A second manifestation of slander is the application to persons of epithets and phrases which they do not deserve. Thus Korah and his company denounced Moses as unjust and tyrannical. Thus the Jews spoke of Christ as an impostor, a blasphemer, a sorcerer, a wine-bibber, a glutton, possessed of the devil, an instigator of the people to anarchy and rebellion. A third manifestation is, aspersing a man's actions with mean censures, intimating that they proceed from wrong motives and principles. Another is, the perversion of a man's words or deeds so as to give them a contrary appearance and signification to what was intended. Another is, the insinuation of suggestions, which, although they do not directly assert falsehood, engender wrong opinions towards those of whom they are made. Another is, the utterance of oblique and covert reflections, which, while they do not expressly amount to an accusation of evil, convey the impression that something is seriously defective. Another is, the imputation to a man's practice, judgment, profession, or words, consequences which have no connection with them, so as to deteriorate him in the estimation of others. Another is, the repetition of any rumour or story concerning a man likely to injure his character in society. Another is, being accessory to or encouraging slander in any sense or degree. The Apostle James speaks of slander as "poison." "The deadliest poisons," says the Rev. F. W. Robertson, in a sermon on this passage, "are those for which no test is known; there are poisons so destructive that a single drop insinuated into the veins produces death in three seconds, and yet no chemical science can separate that virus from the contaminated blood and show the metallic particles of poison glittering palpably, and say, 'Behold, it is here.' "In the drop of venom which distils from the sting of the smallest insect, or the spike of the nettle leaf, there is concentrated the quintessence of a poison so subtle that the microscope cannot distinguish it, and yet so virulent that it can inflame the blood, irritate the whole constitution, and convert day and night into restless misery.