February 8

Charity . . . thinketh no evil. — 1 COR. xiii. 4, 5.

Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. — LUKE vi. 37.

NOT judged of God to whom all hearts are open and to whom all at last shall give account. These words are not to be understood to mean that the Church or the Christian shall pronounce no judgment against evil. — that duty is expressly enjoined in not a few places in the New Testament both by the Lord and the apostles. The Saviour's words in this text are not to be interpreted as permitting the easy-going indifference to evil which is so often simply moral cowardice. His thought is directed rather to censoriousness. — that captious, fault-finding spirit which is quick to see evil and overlook good. It is a spirit of rapid growth and wide opportunity. As we see it in others, we wonder at its proportions and its acuteness. It has an eye like a vulture's; and often when its possessor is thought to be enjoying the pure ether and the celestial radiance of the upper air in which at the time he is floating, it detects the single speck of carrion in the wide horizon and descends upon it as if it were the all-important object within its ken. The exhortation is, that we throttle this spirit within ourselves; that we cultivate an eye that shall be quick to discern good, a spirit always eager to wrap the work and the person of others in the mantle of generous charity. It is the command which gives birth to the virtue that Paul so beautifully describes as the pre-eminent grace of the Christian, the charity "that suffereth long and is kind, that taketh not account of evil, that rejoiceth not in iniquity."

Henry A. Sherwood

Love is kind, and suffers long,

Love is weak, and thinks no wrong;

Love, than death itself more strong,

Give us heavenly love!

C WORDSWORTH.