Are you so sensitive about your neighbor's faults, then, because they offend yourself? No, I do not think that can be the reason either--or, at least, not the whole reason; for you are nearly as apt to speak of them when they do not concern you at all. You even take trouble to find out about those which do not come under your own observation. I know that we all have a weakness for noticing unpleasant things when they occur, and passing over those which are agreeable as a matter of course; we complain of the weather when it is bad, and give no thanks when it is fine; we grumble when we have a bad dinner, and say nothing about a good one. But this does not explain the matter entirely, for most of the faults which you notice in others do not hurt you in any way. {287} No; the fact is, it is simply a vice in yourselves which makes your neighbor's faults so glaring in your eyes. And that vice is the great vice of pride. You are trying to exalt yourselves, at least in your own mind, above others, and the easiest way to do it is to try to push them down. This is at the bottom of all this uncharitableness which is the staple of so many people's thoughts and conversation. There is, therefore, only one real remedy for it, only one which strikes at the root of the whole thing: that is to cultivate the virtue which is the opposite of pride, the great virtue of humility. I said just now that as a person is watchful about his neighbor's faults, so is he careless about his own. Well, the rule works both ways. If you will be careful about your own you will not notice those of other people. For you will acquire this virtue of humility. You will appear so bad in your own sight that others will appear good in comparison. And then, when you have cast out this beam of pride from the eye of your own soul, you will indeed be fit to correct others, and not till then. -------------------- {288} _Second Sunday after Pentecost_. and Sunday within the Octave of Corpus Christi. Epistle. 1 _St. John iii._ 13-18. Dearly beloved: Wonder not if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not, abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother, is a murderer. And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in himself. In this we have known the charity of God, because he hath laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that hath the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him: how doth the charity of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth. Gospel. _St. Luke xiv._ 16-24.