th the rest. Avoid particular friendships. Take no notice
of the defects of others, and form no unfavourable judgments about
them." What matter for consideration in these admirable words!

Thomas a Kempis says: "Turn thy eyes back upon thyself, and see
thou judge not the doing of others. In judging others a man
labours in vain, often errs, and easily sins; but in judging and
looking into himself he always labours with fruit. We frequently
judge of a thing according to the inclination of our hearts,
because self-love easily alters in us a true judgment."

Rodriguez tells us to turn on ourselves the sinister questions,
etc., we are tempted to refer to others _e.g._: "It is I who am
deceived. It is through jealousy that I condemn my brethren. It is
through malice that I find so much to blame in them. Finally, the
fault is mine, not theirs."

Even when reports more or less true might depreciate in your eyes
some of the community, may they not have, besides their faults,
some great but hidden virtues, and by these be entitled to a more
merciful judgment? St. Augustine says beautifully: "If you cast
your eye over a field where the corn has been trampled, you only
perceive the straw, not the grain. Lift up the straw, and you will
see plenty of golden sheaves full of grain." The simile is very
applicable to a poor religious beaten down by foul tongues. We
blame the defects of our brethren, and perhaps we have the same,
or others more shameful still. We usurp the right of judgment,
which God reserves to Himself, and forget that He will punish us
by leaving us to our own irregular passions. Ah! is it not already
a very great misfortune to have these contemptuous, slanderous,
distrustful thoughts, and many other sins, the result of malicious
suspicions and rash judgments, rooted in the soul?

XXXI

MEANS TO SUPPORT THE EVIL THOUGHTS AND TONGUES OF OTHERS

WHAT must be done in those painful moments when, being the victim
of a painful calumny, the object of suspicion, the butt of
domestic persecution, we are tempted to believe that charity is
banished from the community, and so to banish it from our own
heart? Recall the words of St. John of the Cross. "Imagine," says
he, "that your brethren are so many sculptors armed with mallets
and chisels, and that you have been placed before them as a block
of marble destined in the mind of God to become a statue
representing the Man of Sorrows, Jesus crucified." Consider a
hasty