t; in his efforts to impede rising merit, he fortifies the energies
he would destroy. Said Haydon, 'Look down upon genius, and he will rise
to a giant--attempt to crush him, and he will soar to a god.'"

While the censorious man is most severe in judging others, he is
invariably the most ready to repel any animadversions made upon himself;
upon the principle well understood in medical circles, that the feeblest
bodies are always the most sensitive. No man will so speedily and
violently resent a supposed wrong as he who is most accustomed to
inflict injuries upon his associates. Not unfrequently is a fool as
dangerous to deal with as a knave, and for ever is he more incorrigible.

What an unhappy state of mind is that of the censorious talker! He is
always looking with the eyes of jealousy, envy, or malice, to discern
something for censure; and something he _will_ discern; true or false,
it is of no consequence to him. He proceeds in direct opposition to the
Divine injunction, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." "Judge not according
to appearance, but judge righteous judgment." He is like the Pharisees
of old, with two bags, one before and the other behind him. In the one
before he deposits the faults of other people, and in the one behind he
now and then, it may be, deposits the faults of himself. He is devoid of
the charity which covereth a multitude of sins, which is the bond of
perfectness, which "suffereth long, and is kind, which envieth not,
vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, which doth not behave itself
unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; which beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."
This charity has not so much as cast her passing shadow upon the soul of
the censor; and did the shadow or body of charity come within the range
of his vision, he would not discern either the one or the other, because
of the blindness of his heart.

One of the finest expressions in the world is in the seventeenth chapter
of Proverbs, "He that covereth a transgression _seeketh love_; but he
that repeateth a matter separateth very friends." In what a delightful
communion with God does that man live who habitually seeketh love! With
the same mantle thrown over him from the cross, with the same act of
amnesty, by which he hopes to be saved, injuries the most unprovoked,
and transgressions the most aggrav