CONDEMNING IN OTHERS WHAT WE OURSELVES DO.
It is so much easier to see other people's faults than our own that the habit of finding fault and picking out the faults in other people's character is soon formed, and, although very strange that it should be so, we are almost certain to overlook the fact that our weaknesses and sins are the same that we are condemning in others. A young man said not long since: “I think that man [naming a friend of his] has a most unfortunate way of carrying his head on one side; he looks so awkward. I should think he would know it.” The speaker did not realize for a moment that he carried his head very much more awkwardly than the party to whom he referred, and in this criticism called emphatic attention to his own appearance. We sometimes bitterly condemn practices that others have in the way of carelessness and in the way of lack of judgment, when our lives are full of careless actions, of mistakes and faults of every kind. The best way for each of us to do is to pray most earnestly and humbly for strength and direction for ourselves, and when we see in others weaknesses and sins, let us pray earnestly for them and for ourselves that there be not a beam in our own eye while we are pulling out the mote from our brother's eye. If we can see weaknesses in others, others can see our weaknesses. If I want others to be sympathetic with my weakness, I must be the same with theirs. “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 measured to you again.”—Union Gospel News.