Rumors and the Talk of People. The Need for a Good Counselor. The Constant Danger From the Enemy

May the mercy of God be with you!

How painfully your words “the gossip has begun” rang in my heart! Oh, how fearsome and caustic is the fire of human speech and suspicious human eyes! And it is understandable why in the Psalms the holy prophet David so often turns to God in prayer with heartfelt sorrow, asking to be delivered from the tongue of man.

Where can you find comfort and support? In the testimony of your own conscience. Hold in your mind and heart this awareness of the moral uprightness of your actions before God and all right-thinking people. With that awareness you will courageously meet whatever talk may be going around. Meanwhile, behave toward everyone as though you know nothing.

In everyday life one cannot entirely disregard what people say or what they are saying. Prudence here, however, should extend only to the following: conducting oneself so as not to provoke talk or trouble people’s eyes. Beyond this it should not go—for example, to the point of abandoning things that are considered obligatory.

But what peculiarity have you displayed up to this point, really?! Surely not the fact that you visited the venerable Sergius?! That was done quietly, and you were sheltered there among your own people. Or perhaps the fact that every Sunday and feast day you go to church for Vespers and Liturgy?! But that is a duty faithfully observed by all Christians who remember that they are Christians. Only extreme necessity can excuse one from it without incurring the reproach of laziness and forgetting one’s Christianity. Do not look at the bad habits of Moscow young ladies and do not listen to their idle talk. Death comes today or tomorrow. It does not spare beautiful women—it cuts them down as well. And after death comes immediate reckoning. The clever talk of young ladies will count for nothing there.

So do not be troubled by the talk. You are doing everything on your part not to provoke it. If despite that it has begun, let it be. For comfort and to strengthen your courage, it is sufficient—as I said—to have the testimony of your conscience before God. Let everyone condemn you, but if God acquits you in your conscience, all those judgments count for nothing. Someone of good observation once told me that human talk, as long as it cannot attach itself to anything genuinely bad, will hover over a person for a while like a dry cloud and then pass away. The trace of it will go cold and no one will mention it anymore. I think the same will happen in your case. With all my soul I wish this for you. Carry yourself evenly, as always, as though you notice nothing.

Instead of ascetic severity, which is not applicable in your situation, take up the fear of God and the remembrance of death—and they will teach you everything.

Write to me about everything. Concealment is not a bad thing in ordinary life, but in the spiritual life it is the most dangerous thing of all. One absolutely must have someone with whom one can take counsel about everything that happens—both outwardly and, even more, inwardly. Since we have already begun speaking about this between us, do write. There is around us and within us some kind of evil power that introduces us to deception through various semblances of good and tangles up our affairs, leading us now toward empty activity and even toward harmful activity. The enemy sits at our side and constantly nudges our arm. One’s own discernment is a great help against him—specifically, the practice of not immediately acting on whatever appears to be good, but first examining it on all sides. When you begin to examine it, the semblance of goodness with which the enemy clothes his suggestions will at once dissolve. But one’s own discernment does not always succeed in doing this, for the enemy often entangles that too with his promptings (our elders have called these “plant-ins”). So write and tell me everything. And if you find someone there, talk with that person about everything as often as possible.

The Lord save and have mercy on you! We must learn how to live.

Watch over yourself. Your mistakes will show you how to proceed more correctly the next time.