p. 627 | Rebuking by Christian Union

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 22, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 40.

Rebuking.

By Christian Union

The New Testament gives the principle to be observed in rebuking another, when it says: "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such a one." The office of rebuke is always restoration from a fault; a principle which the spectator is very sure mistresses do not always remember when they rebuke their servants, nor parents when they rebuke their children. And such rebuke comes effectually only from those who are measurably free from the fault from which they are endeavoring to recover servant, child, or friend. It would be humorous, if it were not pathetic, to witness, as we often do, a mother scolding her servant with sharp, astringent tones, and then turning, five minutes after, and rebuking a child who has caught the same tone of voice and echoed it in scolding a companion; or to see a father who is always late at breakfast, calling his son sharply to account for imitating his example. Our children mirror our faults, and when the father sees the fault in the little looking-glass, the first thing for him to do is to correct the larger fault in himself. At least let him recognize, in condemning the fault in the child, the fact that the child has inherited it from him, and that he needs to correct it in himself.—Christian Union.