How the World Judges Christians.
By H. W. Beecher
THERE are persons who judge of Christians as a man would judge of apples who should enter an orchard and go stooping along upon the ground in search of them. He picks up one, a hard, green thing, no bigger than a walnut. He bites it; it is sour and bitter; it puckers up his mouth, and sets his teeth on edge.—“Ha?” he says, throwing the untimely fruit away, “I hear them speak of apples as being so delicious—I’m sure I don’t think much of this one.” He picks up another, which looks yellow. There’s a hole in it, but he don’t know what that means; so he bites into it, and finds a worm. “Bah! apples delicious, indeed!” he cries in disgust; and then he picks up a third, which is crushed by his touch, for it is rotten. So he condemns apples, because he has looked for them upon the ground instead of on the trees above his head, where they hang ripe and juicy. Just so, men judge of Christians by the rotten ones on the ground.—H. W. Beecher.