THE GARLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3773, 6 July 1926, Page 68

THE GARLAND.

FOR THE QUIET HOUR. No. 671. By Duncan Wbight, Dunedin. (Fob thb Witness.) “JUDGE NOT/* Do you know the lines by Dr George Macdonald on this subject? “Where have you been, my brother? For I have missed you from the sheet." “I have been away for a night and a day On the Lord God’s judgment seat.' “And what did you find, my brother? When your judging there was done?” “Weeds in my garden, dust in my doors. And my roses dead in the sun. And the lessons I brought back with me, Like silence from above, That upon God’s throne there is room alone For the Lord, Whose heart is lcve." * * * Sr i the critic: “These are the utterances of a novelist; favour us with some better authority on the point”— very good: The wholly unique teacher said long ago: “Judge not, that you may not be judged; for your own judgment will be dealt—and your own measure meted—to yourselves. . . . Hypocrite, first take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see sufficiently plearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” # * * How apt are we, When others err To judge and make a fuss; Without a thought While those we judge That God is judging us. * * * Judge not; the workings of the brain And of his heart thou canst not see; What looks to thy dim eyes a strain, In God’s pure light may only be. A scar, brought from some well-won field, Where thou would only faint and yield. —Adelaide A. Proctor. * * * The message of R. -L. Stevenson is relevant, and will be accepted aird endorsed by most fair-minded people: “There is so much good in the worst of us, There is so much bad in the best of us, That it ill becomes any of U 3 To talk about the rest of us." llow does that appeal to your common sense and reason? # * * Did someone thoughtlessly say: “The Old Book is out of date”? No, reader, no, it is very much up-to-date—never apologises—and with emphasis declares to all the world—“ Judge not.” Would to God the grand Old Book got fair play, and was more read and better understood by all classes. Soon—very soon —the industrial perplexing v problems of to-day would be solved. Once more note: “And why look at the chip in your brother’s eye instead of giving careful attention to the beam in your^own?” * * * While refusing to discuss persons, but only broad general the writer of this message feels strongly that whilst true Christian charity— Christian love —is to some extent recognised to be the chiefest of all the graces, and in a haphazard way is sometimes quoted, it is in daily life largely a dead letter. Does the intelligent reader endorse this statement, I wonder ? * # * * If still alive would Hood again write the message of “The Song of the Shirt”? And would he sorrowfully write again the plaintive words: Alas! for the rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun! Oh. it was pitiful, Near a whole city full * Home she had none! # * * How apt are we, When others err, To judge and make a fuss; Without a thought. While those we judge, That God is judging us. —R. M'Connell. # « • “After all,” says an anonymous writer, “the sympathetic judgment is the only just one. It is easy enough to estimate men by mechanical standards just as you would measure their height by a foot rule, or their weight by scales; but the spirit does not have extension or ponderability. The tests are finer than those which apply to matter. Mathematics do not help, and even logic is sometimes an impertinence. No one is qualified to pass a just judgment on us who cannot sympathetically take our places, and assess our quality with an apprehension of what we failed to do in view of what we tried to .do.” # * * Do you remember the old Persian fable? The man carried two bags—-one in front of him, a large one, into which he placed his neighbour’s faults and infirmities, which he could always see; and a small bag behind, into which he dropped his own faults, which he could not see. The Teacher and Saviour of men would reverse that order —my neighbour’s faults and failings behind, and my own in front, which every day could hi Been, and would bring to me humiliation and shame.

Advisedly I maintain that harsh, cruel judgments are too often on the ljps of and in the heart of youthful and inexperienced Christians. “So then, let him who thinks he is standing securely beware of falling.” Concerning some matters we may not dogmatise; concerning other matters we may be positive and almost certain. Severe judgment, harsh condemnation, bitter words should never proceed from a ripe, meek, gentle, Christ-like spirit; whereas gentleness, tenderness, sweetness, true modesty, and fervent zeal give positive evidence of inward grace. The immortal poet, whose writings are saturated with Bible teaching, speaks thus: Heat not your furnace for your toe is hot That it do singe yourself. And we all remember the adage: To err is human To forgive .Divine. * * * Thomas A. Kempis wrote: “Keeji thine eye turned inward upon thyself, and beware of judging others. In judging others, a man labours to no purpose, commonly errs, and easily sins; but in examining and judging* himself, he is always wisely and usefully employed.” * * * Queries are awkward things sometimes. For instance, liow would we reply if we w r ere, when judging harshly, asked: “Who authorised you to judge another?” Did you ever hear of a judge on the Bench adjudicating upon a grave question before hearing both plaintiff and defendant? How then, dare we decide as to a man’s character amongst men, or his relation to God, without a knowledge of facts? * * * Of F. D. Maurice, Miss Julia Hedgewood writes: “His dread of all individualising attention became, on one side of his nature, a dread of judging, for which all who have in any degree learnt from him must always feel deeply thankful. ‘Of all spirits,’ he writes to his mother, ‘I believe the spirit of judging is the worst, and it has had the rule of me I cannot tell you how dreadfully and how long.’” - * * * The words of Shakespeare surely apPty ■ The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppetli as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath; it is twice bless'd: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 'Tis mightiest in the mighties; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown. * * * ‘ Many a noble soul has suffered sorely from the poisoned arrows of malice. Henry Ward. Beecher was a sufferer in this way, and he feelingly affirms: “In thousands of men, the mind, if unveiled, would be found to be a star chamber filled with false witnesses and cruel judgments. . . . But worse than these are the cruel, harsh, hateful judgments which men form of each other in the silence of the mind, simply because they follow their interests, their feelings, their prejudices, and not their conscience in ascertaining facts and coming to conclusions.” ♦ § • If I but knew that a thought of mine Were outside of love and untrue— That suffering and pain Would follow its train, 1 wouldn’t think it —\yould you? If I knew that a word of mine Hastily spoken, and not true, Would sadden one’s life— Lead to malice or strife— I wouldn’t do it—would you? If I knew that an act of mine Were tinged with errors hue, That woud cause a man To fall as he ran, I wouldn’t do it—would you? # # * Most of us will cheerfully endorse the Rev. Stopfordst Brooke’s message: “There is nothing that needs so much patience as just* judgment of a man. We ought to know his education, the circumstances of his life, the friends he has made or lost, his temperament, his daily work, the motives which filled the act, the health he had at the time, the books he was reading, and the temptations of youth. We ought to have the knowledge of God to judge him justly, and God is the only judge of man. Just judgment must be slow, and one mark of unjust judgment is its haste.” # # # How little we know of each other, As we pass through the journey of life, With its struggles, its fears, and temptations, It’s heartbreaking cares and its strifes. # * * “Master, how often shall my brother act wrongly towards me, and I forgive him? Seven times? Jesus answered: I do not say seven times, but seventy times seven times.” * # # With the tenderness which should always characterise her sex, here is how a woman writes: “There is only one qualification which fits one man to judge another man, and that is love. Without it he judges in anger, and is deaf to all pleading, or in haste, and he will not listen to it. But in early youth, before we learn what love means, we think (and, oh, so foolishly) that we have come into life’s crowded court to among the judges. Later on we fancy that our place is on the jury, and finally we discover, not without surprise, that we have been all the time standing among the prisoners at the Bar—and that there is only one

Judge, since none loves largely enough to judge rightly, except God alone, for He is Love.” Asks the poet J. G. Whittier: Is it a dream? Is heaven so high? Thai pity cannot breathe its air. Its happy eyes for ever dry, Its holy lips without a prayer? My God! my God! if thither led By Thy free grace unmerited No crown nor palm be mine, but let me • keep A heart that still can feel, and eyes that still can weep.