May 22

And David said to Nathan, As the Lord Uveth, the man that hath done this is worthy of death,... becatise he did this thing, and because he had ito pity. And ISathan said to David, Ihou art the man! — 2 Sam. xii. 5-7.

AM V 22 man’s own sin is held up before him a little disguised, he ’ says, “How ugly it is!” And if only for a moment he can be persuaded that it is not his own conduct, but somebody else’s, that he is judging, the instinctive condemnation comes. We have got two sets of names lor vices: one set which rather mitigates and excuses them, and another set which puts them in their real hideousness. We keep the palliative set for home consumption, and liberally distribute the plainspoken, ugly set amongst the vices and faults of our friends.

The same thing which I call in myself prudence, I call in you meanness. The same thing which you call in yourself generous living, you call in your friend filthy sensualism. That which, to the doer of it, is only righteous indignation, to the onlooker is passionate anger. That which, in the practiser of it, is no more than a due regard for the interests of his own family and himself in the future, is, to the envious lookers-on, shabbiness and meanness in money matters. That which, to the liar, is only prudent diplomatic reticence, to the listener is falsehood. That which, in the man that judges his own conduct, is but “a choleric word,” is, in his friend, when he judges him, “flat blasphemy.”

And so we go all round the circle, and condemn our own vices, when we see them in other people. So the King who had never thought, when he stole away Uriah’s one ewe lamb, and did him to death by traitorous commands, setting him in the front of the battle, that he was wanting in compassion, blazes up at once, and righteously sentences the othei “man” to death, “because he had no pity.” He had never thought of blmsolf or of his crime as cruel, as mean, as selfish, as heartless. But when he sees a partially disguised picture of it, he knows it for the devil’s child that it is.

“Oh! wad some power the gifiie gie us
lo see oursels as ithers see us;
It wad frae many an error free us “:

and so it would, to see ourselves as we see others. We judge our brother and ourselves by two different standards.

For godliness, we need to cultivate the habit of discrimination between good and evil, right and wrong, because the world is full of illusions, and we are very blind. And we need to cultivate the habit of self-control, and rigid repression of passions, and lusts, and desires, and tastes, and inclinations before His calm and sovereign will, because the world is lull of fire, and our hearts and natures are tinder. And we need to cultivate the habit of patience in all its three senses of endurance in sorrow, of persistence in service, and of hope of the future, because the more a man cultivates that habit, the larger will be his stock of proofs of the loving-kindness and goodness of his God, and the easier and more blessed it will be for him to live in continual communion with Him. There is no way by which your religion can become deep, all-pervasive, practical, sovereign in your lives, but the old road of efitbrt and of prayer. “Exercise thyself,” as a gymnast does in the arena; — exercise thyself unto godliness, — and do not fancy that the Chrisiian life comes as a matter of course on the back of some one initial act of a long-forgotten faith in Jesus Christ.