Censoriousness

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 21, 1911

It is not our privilege to sit in judgment upon our fellow human beings. We have not the power to do it either intelligently or without some personal bias. We can form opinions that are of practical value concerning our relations to them, or their relations to society. A bank cashier must consider a man’s character as well as his business ability. We must constantly be more or less consciously making decisions based upon our acquaintance with the character of others, though that acquaintance is always superficial and imperfect. Juries have the responsibility of deciding whether men and women are guilty of certain crimes. But none of us knows any man’s standing before the omniscient Judge of all, who is also the loving Father of all. Censoriousness is one of the most common of sins, and is most severely condemned by Christ, who has said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” It is easier for us to see the mote that is in our brother’s eye than to consider the beam that is in our own eye. We do not know enough of any human life and of the secrets of any human heart to pronounce an infallible judgment. To know any man thoroughly we would have to know all his ancestors and his good or evil inheritance from them, all his circumstances, his mental infirmities, the fire of his passions, the strength or weakness of his will, and all his environment, in the broadest sense of that word. Especially would we need to know perfectly the spiritual history of his heart, its moral conflicts and agonies.

“What’s done we partly may compute, But know not what’s resisted.”

And if our knowledge of all the heredity, the environment, the deeds, and the hearts of others were perfect instead of being very imperfect, not one of us is without some personal bias, however unconscious of it he may be. The censorious consider not the beam that is in their own eye. The spectroscope can tell us of the metals in a remote star, but it is impossible for us to obtain an exact and complete analysis of any human character. It was not the man who thanked God that he was not as other men who was commended by Christ, but the one who smote himself on the breast, saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”—Selected.