be carefully
handled or not handled at all. But how recklessly some people wield
the judgments of God! If a man meet with business misfortune, how many
there are ready to cry out: "That is a judgment of God upon him
because he was unscrupulous, or arrogant, or overreaching, or miserly.
I thought he would get cut down! What a clean sweep of everything! His
city house and country house gone! His stables emptied of all the fine
bays and sorrels and grays that used to prance by his door! All his
resources overthrown, and all that he prided himself on tumbled into
demolition! Good for him!" Stop, my brother. Don't sling around too
freely the judgments of God, for they are razors.

Some of the most wicked business men succeed, and they live and die in
prosperity, and some of the most honest and conscientious are driven
into bankruptcy. Perhaps his manner was unfortunate, and he was not
really as proud as he looked to be. Some of those who carry their head
erect and look imperial are humble as a child, while many a man in
seedy coat and slouch hat and unblacked shoes is as proud as Lucifer.
You can not tell by a man's look. Perhaps he was not unscrupulous in
business, for there are two sides to every story, and everybody that
accomplishes anything for himself or others gets industriously lied
about. Perhaps his business misfortune was not a punishment, but the
fatherly discipline to prepare him for heaven, and God may love him
far more than He loves you, who can pay dollar for dollar, and are put
down in the commercial catalogues as A1. Whom the Lord loveth He gives
four hundred thousand dollars and lets die on embroidered pillows? No:
whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth. Better keep your hand off the
Lord's razors, lest they cut and wound people that do not deserve it.
If you want to shave off some of the bristling pride of your own heart
do so; but be very careful how you put the sharp edge on others.

How I do dislike the behavior of those persons who, when people are
unfortunate, say: "I told you so--getting punished--served him right."
If those I-told-you-so's got their desert they would long ago have
been pitched over the battlements. The mote in their neighbor's
eyes--so small that it takes a microscope to find it--gives them more
trouble than the beam which obscures their own optics. With air
sometimes supercilious and sometimes Pharisaical, and always
blasphemous, they take the razor of the divine judgment and sharpen