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How Dare You!

 

  Lewis Keseberg was tired of all the accusations against him so he filed a defamation lawsuit against Ned Coffeemeyer the man he saw as responsible for the rumors. The court found that Ned had indeed called Keseberg a “thief and murderer” without any proof but it didn’t rule very strongly in his favor by only imposing a fine of one dollar.

 Maybe they were lenient because Ned Coffeemeyr had earlier rescued Lewis Keseberg from a terrible situation.

 Maybe it was because the accusations while not proven were highly likely.

 And maybe because Lewis Keseberg had admitted to eating people.

 Lewis Keseberg was one of the members of the infamous Donner Party, a wagon train that got caught in the Siera Nevada mountain and resorted to cannibalism to survive. Keseberg wasn’t known as a very good person before those events and they certainly didn’t help improve his image. But to sue the very person who saved you seems to define the kind of person he was.

 Yet, there are a lot of folks like Lewis Keseberg. Well, maybe not cannibals, but those who will attack others for offenses that pale in comparison to their own. Like those Peter talks about in 1st Peter 4:4 “In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you;” Folks that will attack you ever thought they are the ones in the wrong. People that take the evil they do and somehow use it against you.

 I often found that people who are quick to malign others do so as a way to cover up their own inadequacies. Those who “cry foul” are the ones that foul the most.

 That is why we need to be careful when hear one attacking the character of another, they may just be the biggest character of all.

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