Judging Others' Misfortunes: Who Is to Blame?
By H. Clay Trumbull
“THEY said, . . . No doubt this man is a murderer, whom . . . vengeance suffereth not to live.” How easy it is to be sure that other people deserve punishment, and are getting it. If we are in trouble, we wonder why God afflicts us. At all events we are not to blame for our misfortunes. If the trouble is at our next-door neighbor’s, it is plain enough where the fault lies. If their house is robbed, there is “no doubt” that they were very careless in leaving their doors and windows unfastened. If their children are disobedient or graceless, there is “no doubt” that the parents sadly neglected them. If those neighbors lose their property, there is “no doubt” that they were always extravagant or shiftless. With what guileless simplicity the disciples came to Jesus, asking about the blind man, “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” After all, those Maltese barbarians were not so far different from the rest of us. “It is good enough for him,” or “It is what he might have expected,” is the judgment we too often pass upon one whom, without good reason, we esteem “smitten of” God, and afflicted.” “Who art thou that judgest another?”—H. Clay Trumbull.