March 26

Who art thou that judgest another?—JAMES iv. 12.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?—LUKE vi. 41.

TO see a mote in my neighbor's eye when a beam is in mine own eye is physically impossible. To see and measure my neighbor's sins when I am committing sins myself, is morally impossible. The Pharisee deciding that he was not "as other men are" was a blind man passing himself off for a professor of ophthalmology. No wonder that Christ says to such, "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

Judging how far my neighbor's soul is wanting in conformity to God's law will become my business when there is no longer in me any want of conformity; hence it will never become my business. "Let us not therefore judge one another any more." The judgment seat is reserved for the holy Christ, whose eyes without beam or mote see all things perfectly.

This much however I may decide now, — that never can my neighbor's sin, viewed as to its power to obscure my vision of things worth seeing, be to me more than a mote. But my sin, because it is my sin, becomes a beam preventing my seeing God and the pure and heavenly.

"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

Henry M. MacCracken.

Forget not thou hast often sinned,

And sinful yet must be:

Deal gently with the erring one,

As God has dealt with thee.

FLETCHER.