d cry,--Judge between us which of us is
right; and there will come to that false man exposure and shame, and a
worse punishment still, perhaps, if he have let the habit grow too strong
on him, and have not agreed with his adversary in time.

For have you not seen (alas, you have too surely seen) men who had
contracted such a habit of falsehood that they could not shake it off--
who had played with their sense of truth so long that they had almost
forgotten what truth meant; men who could not speak without mystery,
concealment, prevarication, half-statements; who were afraid of the plain
truth, not because there was any present prospect of its hurting them,
but simply because it was the plain truth--children of darkness, who,
from long habit, hated the light--and who, though they had been found out
and exposed, could not amend--could not become simple, honest, and
truthful--could not escape from the prison of their own bad habits, and
the net of lies which they had spread round their own path, till they had
paid the uttermost penalty for their deceit?

Look, again, at the case of the uncharitable man, in the habit of forming
harsh and cruel judgments of his neighbours. Then his adversary is the
everlasting law of Love, which will surely at last punish him, by the
most terrible of all punishments--loss of love to man, and therefore to
God. Are we not (I am, I know, may God forgive me for it) apt to be
angry with our brethren without a cause, out of mere peevishness? Let us
beware in time. Are we not apt to say to them "Raca"--to speak cruelly,
contemptuously, fiercely of them, if they thwart us? Let us beware in
time still more. Are we not worst of all, tempted (as I too often am) to
say to them "Thou fool;" to call better men, more useful men more pure
men, more pious men than ourselves, hard and cruel names, names from
which they would shrink with horror because they cannot see Christian
truth in just exactly the same light that we do? Oh! let us beware then.
Beware lest the everlasting laws of justice and fairness between man and
man, of love and charity between man and man, which we have broken,
should some day deliver us up, as they delivered those bigoted Jews of
old to God our Judge, and He deliver our souls to His most terrible
officers, who are called envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness;
and they thrust us into that blackest of all prisons, on the gate of
which i