ON OUR JUDGMENTS OF OTHER MEN.

39

our admiration. There are people who wear the worst part of their characters outwards; they offend our vanity they rouse our fears; and under these influences we omit to consider how often a scornful man is tenderhearted, and an assuming man one who longs to be popular and to please.

Then there are characters of such a different kind from our own, that we are without the means of measuring and appreciating them.

But of all the errors in judging of others, some of the worst are made in judging of those who are nearest to us. They think that we have entirely made up our minds about them, and are apt to show us that sort of behavior only which they know we expect. Perhaps, too, they fear us, or they are convinced that we do not and cannot sympathize with them. And so we move about in a mist, and talk of phantoms as if they were living men, and think that we understand those who never interchange any discourse with us, but the talk of the marketplace.

It is well to be thoroughly impressed with a sense of the difficulty of judging about others; still, judge we must, and sometimes very hastily: the purposes of life require it. We have, however, more and better materials, sometimes, than we are aware of; for the primary character of a man is especially discernible in trifles; for then he acts almost unconsciously. You may learn more of a person by a little converse with him, than by a faithful outline of his history. The most important of his actions

40

RASH JUDGMENTS.

may be any thing but the most significant of the man; for they are likely to be the results of many things besides his nature. I doubt whether you might not learn more from a good portrait of him, than from two or three of the most prominent actions of his life. Indeed if men did not express much of their nature in their manners, appearance, and general bearing, we should be at a sad loss to make up our minds how to deal with each other.

Helps.

We must use remedies against rash judgments, according to their causes. There are some hearts harsh, bitter, and virulent by Nature, which make also bitter whatsoever they receive, converting judgment (as the Prophet saith) into wormwood, never judging their neighbor but with rigor and bitterness. These have great need to fall into the hands of some good Spiritual Physician; for this bitterness of heart being natural to them, it is hard to overcome. And though in itself it be no Sin, but only an imperfection, yet is it dangerous, because it introduceth and causeth to reign in the Soul rash judgment and de

traction.

Many judge rashly, only for the pleasure they take to discourse, and make conjectures of other men's manners and humors by way of exercising their wits..

Others judge in passion, thinking always well of what they love, and always ill of what they hate. In fine, fear, ambition, and other such infirmities of the Mind, do ordinarily contribute towards the breeding of suspicions and rash judgments. De Sales.

JUDGE NOT FROM EXCEPTIONAL CASES.

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A man can never tell certainly another man's sincerity, unless he could supply the place of Conscience. An Hypocrite may spin so fair a thread as that it may deceive his own eye; he may admire the cobweb, and not know himself to be the spider; how much more easy may he deceive a stander-by? And as for any extraordinary spirit of discerning, I know no ground for it nor any promise of it in the Scriptures. Culverwel.

"The Demons urge us," says St. John Climachus," either to sin, or to judge those who sin." Ages of Faith.

If there is any person to whom you feel dislike, that is the person of whom you ought never to speak.

Cecil.

One reason why we are so severe on the faults of others and so lenient to our own, is that we judge their action alone as the index of their regard for virtue, while we find in ourselves an infinite love of virtue, and an entire trust in our power of following her, and we are so filled by this that we are but slightly shocked, when in any one instance we deviate from our well-known line of rectitude. Emerson.

Say not such a one is a drunkard because you have seen him drunk; for one act alone is not sufficient to constitute a vice. The sun stood still once in favor of the victory of Joshua, and was darkened another time in favor of that

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ON TRYING TO CURE THE FAULTS OF OTHERS.

of our Saviour; yet none will say that the sun is either immovable or dark. St. Peter had not a sanguinary disposition because he once shed blood, nor was he a blasphemer because he once blasphemed. To acquire the name of a vice or a virtue, the action must be habitual,

one must have made some progress in it. It is, then, an injustice to say that such a man is passionate or a thief, because we have seen him once in a passion, or guilty of stealing. De Sales.

The committing of even a single evil act lowers, and justly too, our estimate of a man's character. If we ought not call him a liar for once yielding to temptation, neither can we call him a man of truth. It has been said that to Infinite Justice it is "equally impossible to save all, or to reject all; and justice forbids us alike to count one fault or one ill deed as nothing, and to let it obscure the whole

man.

When you fancy any one has transgressed, say this to yourself: "How do I know it is a Fault? And granting it is, it may be his Conscience has corrected him. And if so, he has given himself a Sour Box on the Ear."

Antoninus.

To deem it a Duty to press our notions of Right upon all around us, is often, even where we are most right, only a mischievous activity, that betrays a very superficial sense of the deep and individual sources from which moral acts

ON TRYING TO CURE THE FAULTS OF OTHERS. 43

must spring, if they are to have the least value in themselves, or to be of any genuine efficacy in elevating the character. In the equal intercourses of life, it is no part of our social responsibility that the more enlightened Conscience should insist upon making a direct conveyance of its superior knowledge to the less instructed, or that the honest and faithful Conscience should demand an account from every lapsed and faithless one. It is enough that we are clear, unambiguous, uncompromising, in our own words and lives, that by manifestation of the Truth we commend ourselves to every man's Conscience in the sight of God, — and that, if any man sins or tampers with conviction, we have not made his fall easy to him, or helped to conceal the Light that condemns him. Of course there are cases when our Duty goes far beyond this, when every bond of sacredness requires that we should come into direct collision with the evil thing, lay our hand on our brother's shoulder and search his very heart, remonstrate, entreat, persuade, warn, and rebuke with a manly and a holy freedom. J. H. Thom.

Those that can look with dry and undispleased eyes upon another's sin, never truly mourned for their own. It is a godless heart that doth not find itself concerned in God's quarrel; and that can laugh at that which the God of Heaven frowns at. Bishop Hall.

Moral repugnance is as important as moral enthusiasm, two polar forces cannot be of unequal strength.