The deepest loyalty to the divine ideal involves, however, not only the
striving after perfection, but the charity for imperfection. To denounce
evil is a part of rectitude; to condemn sin is a moral duty; but to
condemn the sinner is not infrequently to be more deeply at fault than
is he who thus offended. An illustration of this point has recently been
before the public. A New York clergyman preached on Easter Sunday a
sermon that was not his own. He gave no credit to its writer. The sermon
was published, and a minister of another church, recognizing it, at once
proceeded to "expose" the matter in the daily press. Not only did he
call public attention to the error, but he did it in a manner that
seemed to rejoice in the opportunity; a manner so devoid of sorrow or
sympathy as to fill the reader with despair at such an exhibition. Rev.
E. Walpole Warren fittingly rebuked the evident malice with which the
fault was exposed, and quoted the words of Saint Paul in the injunction:
"Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye who are spiritual
restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest
thou also be tempted." To have gone, in a spirit of love, privately and
quietly, and pointed out the error, would have been Christian-like; to
exult in it must be described by a very different term. Devotion to
truth is good, but it is "speaking the truth in love" that is the ideal.
It is even possible to convey questioning, counsel, encouragement, or
reproach without the spoken word; to send the message by the law of
suggestion from mind to mind. The mental intimation will reach the one
to whom it is sent if the conditions for telepathy are observed, for
thought is far more penetrative than the Roentgen ray, and the
atmosphere is magnetic, and carries it as the wire does the electric
current. All these finer conditions are beginning to make themselves
felt as practicable forces. Humanity is becoming "plastic to the spirit
touch;" sensitive to those vibrations too fine to be registered by the
outward ear.
"Thought is the wages
For which I sell days,"
said Emerson. Thought is the motor of the future. "As a man thinketh, so
is he," is one of the most practical and literal truths.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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