A certain lady had been guilty of a most serious fault, committed, indeed, through mere weakness of character, but none the less scandalous in the extreme. Our Blessed Father, being informed of what had happened, and having every kind of vehement invective against the unfortunate person poured into his ears, only said: "Human misery! human misery!" And again, "Ah! how we are encompassed with infirmity! What can we do of ourselves, but fail? We should, perhaps, do worse than this if God did not hold us by the right hand, and guide us to His will." At last, weary of fencing thus, he faced the battle, and the comments on this unhappy fall becoming ever sharper and more emphatic, exclaimed: "Oh! happy fault, of what great good will it not be the cause![1] This lady's soul would have perished with many others had she not lost herself. Her loss will be her gain, and the gain of many others." Some of those who heard this prediction merely shrugged their shoulders. Nevertheless, it was verified. The sinning soul returned to give glory to God, and the community which she had scandalized was greatly edified by her conversion and subsequent good example. This story reminds me of the words used by the Church in one of her offices. Words in which she calls the sin of Adam thrice happy, since because of it the Redeemer came down to our earth--a fortunate malady, since it brought us the visit of so great a Physician. "Even sins," says our Blessed Father, in one of his letters, "work together for good to those who truly repent of them." [Footnote 1: Office for Holy Saturday.] UPON NOT JUDGING OTHERS. Men see the exterior; God alone sees the heart, and knows the inmost thoughts of all. Our Blessed Father used to say that the soul of our neighbour was that tree of the knowledge of good and evil which we are forbidden to touch under pain of severe chastisement; because God has reserved to Himself the judgment of each individual soul. _Who art thou_, says Sacred Scripture, _who judgest thy brother?_ Knowest thou that _wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself_?[1] Who has given thee the hardihood to take upon thyself the office of Him Who has received from the Eternal Father all judgment? That is to say, all power of judging in Heaven and on earth? He observed that a want of balance of mind, very common among men, leads them to judge of what they do not know, and not to judge of what they do know. They, as St. Jude declares, _blaspheme in what they know not, and corrupt themselves in what they know_.[2] They are blind to what passes in their own homes, but preternaturally clear-sighted to all happening in the houses of others.