Let us not therefore judge one another any more.
Rom. xiv. 13

“Tell not abroad another’s faults
Till thou hast cured thine own;
Nor whisper of thy neighbor’s sin
Till thou art perfect grown:
Then, when thy soul is pure enough
To bear My searching eye
Unshrinking, then may come the time
Thy brother to decry.”
“Jesu, Saviour, pitying be;
Parce mihi, Domine!”
Lyra Mystica

THE habit of judging is so nearly incurable, and its cure is such an almost interminable process, that we must concentrate ourselves for a long while on keeping it in check, and this check is to be found in kind interpretations. We must come to esteem very lightly our sharp eye for evil, on which perhaps we once prided ourselves as cleverness. We must look at our talent for analysis of character as a dreadful possibility of huge uncharitableness. We are sure to continue to say clever things, so long as we continue to indulge in this analysis; and clever things are equally sure to be sharp and acid. We must grow to something higher, and something truer, than a quickness in detecting evil.

Frederick Wm. Faber