Be careful,--think well before you answer. In a minister of God a mistake in this matter were little better than a crime. Are you inculcating the spirit of Christ or Belial--of Love or Hate? What do ye when mocked, reviled, your purposes called in question? Do you go to the mocker, extend to him a brother's hand and strive by moral suasion to lead him out of the depths of everlasting darkness into the bright effulgence of heavenly Day? Do you turn the other cheek to the smiter and pray, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do"? Or do you mount the pulpit with a splenetic heart and, with frantic gestures and a voice hoarse with passion denounce the criticism as "infernal rubbish"? Are you seeking the salvation of souls or notoriety? Are you striving to foment discord in your community or cast oil upon the troubled waters? Are you striving to establish on earth the universal brotherhood of Man and common fatherhood of God, or Throwing Stones at Christ and the Christian Cause from the cover of a canting hypocrisy? Do you strive when criticised to transfer the criticism from yourself to the Savior? Do you brand men who dare to differ from you as blasphemers,--as though you were one with God and that to question your superior wisdom and goodness were equal to deny the Almighty? Do you, by presumption where you should be meek, by belligerency where you should act the peacemaker, by dogmatism where you should humbly seek the light, by denunciation where you should propitiate, call down the world's contempt on the cause you profess to serve--Cast Stones at Christ? It is Written, "Judge not lest ye be judged." Do you Always heed the law?--carefully refrain from resolving yourself into an inquisitorial court,--becoming both prosecutor and judge and condemning those who chance to differ from you? "Why so hot, little man?" The world rolled on, oh so many weary years before the Fates kindly sent thee to set it right; it will go on much in the same old way after both thee and thy work have been forgotten. To the stones cast at Christ by professed unbelievers we need give but little heed. They rain harmless as Parthian shafts on the shield of Achilles. Never was atheistical book written, never was infidel argument penned that touched the core of any religion, Christian or Pagan. They but serve as driving sand of the desert to scour the eating rust from the Christian armor. Seldom indeed does the avowed infidel cast a stone at Christ,--he contents himself with holding up to the world's scorn the mummeries in which dogmatizers have invested the teachings of the grandest man that ever died for truth. God created nothing in vain. Even the atheist has his uses; nay, even the splenetic preacher may fill an important niche in the great world's economy--may be a real blessing in disguise.