"Charity envieth not." Worse yet. Why, some people cannot even see their neighbor have a new dress or hat without at once making up their minds to take the shine out of that conceited thing. And if they hear it said that Miss So-and-So is good-looking they will take some opportunity to remark: "For the life of me, I can't make out what any one sees to admire in her." {146} Probably they might manage to see it if they would make a great effort; but how can they make the effort when no one seems to have any eye for their own good points, which ought to be so evident to all? And it is not the ladies only who have this weakness. You will hear something like this: "Oh! I consider him to be a much overrated man. I knew him when he was young, and he was nothing above the common. But some people certainly have luck." Or, if you do not hear it out loud, the grumbling is there all the same in the heart. Perhaps some praise has to be given, but it is very sparing; given with great appearance of careful judgment and a desire to keep closely to the truth. "Charity dealeth not perversely." How is this? Why, you will find Christians who would, as the saying goes, "cut off their nose to spite their face." They will even suffer themselves, if some one else can only be made to suffer too. But I shall not have time to make all the applications. As I said, you had better read the Epistle, then you can make them for yourselves. I wish, however, to call your attention before closing to one unpleasant circumstance. Is this charity, which St. Paul so highly praises and so beautifully describes, a sort of fancy and ornamental virtue, which is certainly very commendable, but which we can get along well enough without? Listen to a few other words which come a little before those I have read: "If I should have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." Notice, he does not say, "I am not much, or these things are not much good, without charity": no, without it "I am nothing"; a cipher, and a sham. Take this home and meditate on it. {147} Sermon XLII. Delay Of Repentance. _Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap._ --Galatians vi. 7, 8.