The Critical Habit
Lord, make us love all; that when we meet, Even myriads of earth’s myriads at thy bar, We may be glad, as all true lovers are.
Who, having parted, count reunion sweet.
Safe gathered home around thy blessed feet,
Come home by different roads from near or far, Whether by whirlwind or by flaming car.
From pangs or sleep, safe folded round thy seat.
Christina G. Rossetti.
St. Paul, in one of his terse, strong sentences, tells us that “knowledge puffeth up, but love buildeth up.*’ Mere knowledge inflates a man, makes him vain, self-conceited. In relation to others it makes him arrogant, critical, impatient, censorious, intolerant. Thus knowledge alone is insufficient as a qualification for dealing with others. There must be love as well as knowledge. Love in the heart tempers knowledge. It makes us patient with others, charitable toward their mistakes, quick to see the good that is in them, ready to bear with their infirmities, and to help them to do better.
At no other point is this teaching more important than in our judging of others. The habit of finding fault is altogether too common. It is easy; any one can find fault. We see blemishes and flaws, and we like to speak about them. It seems a luxury to some people to do so. The law of love, however, if given full sway, would put restraint upon us, not only upon the utterance of our criticisms, but also upon all unkindly judgment of others and of their acts. Love suffereth long, and is kind. Love taketh not account of evil.
We should think of the effect of criticism on others. It discourages and ofttimes does serious hurt. Life is not easy for any one, and to many people it is very hard. They are carrying every ounce of burden they can possibly carry. They sometimes almost totter beneath their heavy load. Now suppose that, instead of saying cheering words to these people, heartening words which would put new hope and courage into their spirit, we do nothing but criticise them, find fault with them, speak in a harsh, unloving way of them; what is the effect upon them? It can only be hurtful. It makes their load all the heavier. Or, rather, it takes out of their heart the enthusiasm, the hope, the courage, and makes it harder for them to go on.
At certain points in the Alps, tourists are cautioned by the guides not to speak or sing, or even to whisper, as the faintest breath might start reverberations in the air which would loosen a delicately poised avalanche from its place on the mountain, and bring it crashing down upon villages and fields. There are men and women who are walking under such stress of burden, care, responsibility, sorrow, or temptation, that one whisper of censure, of criticism, of complaint, of unkindness, may cause them to fall under their load. It is a crime thus to imperil another life. On the other hand, we should be the friend and helper of every human soul in its struggle after better things. The world needs love, love that will never add to another’s burden, that will not judge or condemn another, but that will always give cheer, encouragement, and inspiration of hope. Knowledge that puffs up and makes one censorious is not of God. Without love we are not fit to touch another life. Love builds up.
This lesson is not unneeded. We may as well confess that we are all prone to be critical of our fellows. We fall most easily into the habit of saying unkindly things of others. We do not mean to hurt any one. We disclaim all intention to be unfair or unkind. We imagine that our criticisms are just and right, and therefore that we should utter them. We forget that we ought to look at others through eyes of love, and not through eyes of mere cold knowledge. We do not know how much harm we do by our unchristian censure and faultfinding.
Especially should we think of the influence of this critical habit on Christian workers, our companions and friends. It is not our work that they are doing. They are not in our employ. We are not their masters. They are not under our direction. We have no right whatever to dictate to them how they shall do the work of Christ, or to criticise the way in which they do it. Christ is their Master. It is his work that they are doing. They should do it under his direction. To him as their Master they stand or fall. We can have no possible right to criticise them, or find fault with them.
In some churches there is too much of the faultfinding spirit. It is not the true Christ-spirit. When retiring and timid Christians know that everything they do is watched for the purpose, not of kindly commendation, but of criticism, and when they hear of unfriendly things said about their work, it is not hard to foretell the consequences. There are certain matters in which liberty of adverse opinion may be allowed, and where no one can be blamed for expressing his judgment. There may be no special harm in criticising a woman’s dress, or bonnet, or gait, or the house which a man builds, or his careless way of doing business, or the singing of one who sings as a professional, although possibly even this sort of censure cannot be vindicated on strict Christian principles. But certainly we have no right to sit as judge on our fellow Christians’ efforts to do Christ’s work. It may be that we know better ways of working, and could teach them much. But we should never assume to be their censors, their judges, their critics, talking of the sacred things of Christ as if they were only pieces of common week-day work.
We all remember how Jesus dealt with his disciples in their poor, faulty work. He commended what they did.” She hath done what she could,’’ was his gentle defence of one who had done a deed of love which older disciples were condemning and criticising. So it ever was. He never found fault with his disciples when they were doing their best.
Some one has said that many of the most beautiful things in heaven are earth’s blunders, — things God’s children, with loving heart, tried to do to please God. The blunders tell of love, and are dear to God. There is a rich home in which the most sacred and precious household treasure is a puckered seam. A little child one day picked up the mother’s sewing, — some simple thing she had been working on and had laid down, — and after half an hour’s quiet brought it, and gave it to her, saying, “Mamma, Ts been helping you, ‘cause I love you so.” The stitches were long, and the sewing was all puckered; but the mother saw only beauty in it all, for it told of her child’s love and eagerness to please her. That night the little one sickened, and in a few hours was dead. No wonder the mother keeps that piece of drawn and puckered sewing among her rarest treasures. Nothing that the most skilful hands have wrought, among all her household possessions, means to her half so much as that handkerchief with the child’s unskilful work on it.
May not this be the way in which God looks at his children’s homeliest and humblest efforts to do things for him? We know well how faulty even the best Christian work done in this world must seem to Christ, — how full of unwisdom, how foolish, much of it, how mixed with self and vanity, how untactful, how indiscreet, how without prayer and love, how ignorant, how ungentle. Of course we can see many faults in the work of others; but we should remember always how poor, mistaken, unworthy, how imperfectly done, is even our best service, as it looks to Christ’s pure and holy eyes. We should remember, too, that he does not chide us for it, does not blame us for doing so ill the sacred things he gave us to do, does not talk complainingly to the angels and the apostles about our mistakes. Oh, no! many of our poor blunders, our most faulty pieces of work, are held as among our Master’s most sacred treasures in heaven. He uses our blundering efforts, if only love and faith be in them, to bless others, to do good, to build up his kingdom. He is saving the world to-day, not through faultless work of angels, but through the poor, ignorant, flawed, ofttimes foolish, work of disciples who love him and want to help him. He puts the treasures of grace for the world into earthen vessels.
Can we not learn this great lesson from our Master? ‘* Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up/* Somehow the habit so grows upon us that we come to feel after a while as if we had a right to find fault, we have grown so wise. “Knowledge puffs up.’’ We think ourselves quite competent to criticise any Christian worker, old or young, layman or minister. “Knowledge puffs up.” Yes; but it is not Christian, it is not like Christ. He did not do it, and why should we y If he is pleased to use people’s poor, blundering work, have we any right to find fault with it y
We should remember, too, that no most faulty work that any one may do hurts Christ’s heart half so much as when we grow censorious and critical. That is a kind of work which never pleases him, which he never commends. It is never beautiful in his eyes.
“Love builds up.” Shall we not learn to look on all other Christians and their work as Christ looks upon us and our work, — with patience and love? Shall we not restrain our lips from every faultfinding word that we are tempted to speak when we see flaws or mistakes? Of course we can criticise finely, but that is not a high Christian attainment, a fruit of the Spirit, an art in which proficiency is honorable. Criticism is not our mission.
Two things we are set here to do: we should do our own work as well as we can; then we should give cheer, inspiration, and encouragement to every other worker for Christ who comes within our influence. How much more angelic is this than to censure and blame and find fault with others t Words of encouragement spoken to those who are striving to be of use and to live well are holy words. They please the Master, and they inspire in those to whom they are spoken the hope that is the forerunner of success.