The Lord knoweth our frame; he deals with us not according to what we are not, but according to what we are. He sets before us various duties, and to the end that we may the better fulfil them, he gives us aids not contrary to, but accordant with our natural feelings. Men set up a standard, often a just and scriptural one, to which they sorrowfully confess that because of the weakness of their nature they cannot themselves attain; but according to which they sternly judge their neighbors. A person has a path assigned to him, a steep ascent strewed with thorns and crowded with obstacles, before which he often pauses and waxes faint. God gives him a companion for his way, even as he sent forth the disciples two and two, and the pilgrim is cheered. He quickens his pace; another besides himself will be benefited by his progress, and if he fails, another will suffer in his loss. So he goes on thankful, rejoicing, and endued with double energy for the toilsome achievement. But he sees a neighbor to whom the Lord has also granted help through human means, perhaps not exactly similar to that which he has received; he sees his neighbor likewise openly rejoicing in the possession of such a staff; and bringing him to the tests of that perfect law which requires an entire devotedness to and dependence on the Lord, he raises a cry of "mixed motives," "the arm of flesh," "idolatry," and so forth. No doubt he is so far right, that perverse humanity will ever abuse God's gifts, and often make them occasions of sin; but this outcry of the beam against the mote, which is so grievously prevalent in the religious world, is very unseemly. Oh, how infinitely more tender is the Lord to us than we to one another.