But this telling about people's sins is a sin, as I have said, not only against charity but against justice. Charity goes a good deal farther than that. It covers sins not only from other people's eyes, but even from our own. That is what St. Paul says about it. He says: "Charity thinketh no evil"--that is to say, it does not see sin in other people; it puts the best construction on their actions. How rare it is to find any one who thoroughly practises charity of this kind! For instance, somebody tells something about you which you know to be false; do you put the best construction on this? No, you put the very worst you can. You say to yourself: "He, or she, did that out of malice. He knew very well that what he said was not true, and said it to slander me, out of pure spite." You never stop to think that he maybe laboring under a false impression--may really think that what he says is true, and that he is, moreover, justified in saying it. {265} You never make any allowance for the passion he may be under which has blinded his judgment; you never think of the provocations he may have had, or may at least fancy that he has had. The utmost you do is to say: "Well, I do not wish him any evil; I forgive him the injury he has done me." And if you have said that, which ought to be a matter of course, you look upon yourself as a great Christian hero. Try to learn, then, that charity means more than forgiving sins. It means _excusing_ them--finding out, if possible, some reason which may show that what seems to be a sin was not really so. You are ready enough to excuse your own sins; to say, "I could not help it," or "I did not mean any harm." Why don't you say the same thing for somebody else? Throw the veil of charity over the faults of others--if they have sinned it will do you no good to know it--and take it off from your own, which you ought to know a great deal better than you do. By the charity of covering other people's sins from your own eyes you will cover your own from the eyes of God. ----------------- Sermon LXXVIII. _Before all things, have a mutual charity among yourselves; for charity covereth a multitude of sins._ --1 St. Peter iv. 8.