Thought Moments

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 13, 9 October 1942, Page 3

Thought Moments

(Supplied by the Whakata

STOP CRITICISING

COUNSEL TO YOUNG CHRISTIANS

In his later years, while studying very carefully the habits of plants, the health of Charles Darwin was far from good. A daughter of the great scientist, having expressed in the hearing of an old family servant some anxiety for her father's condition, the. servant said: "K believe master would, be all right if he had only something to occupy his mind. Sometimes he stands in the conservatory from morning till night just a-lookin' at the flowers." The good woman's Judgment of her master was based on lack of knowledge, and it is -a type of many such judgments which sometimes work grievous harm. We know so little of each other. The stern consequences of heredity and environment are so far-reaching', and affect us so poAverfully, that many men and women have a constant battle to fight because of them. One who has been brought up in refined surroundings, free from physical and moral taint, little knows the handicap that the man has w-ho has grown up in an atmosphere which is the anthithesis of that. Cowper's great word, that it is in the deed, the unequivocal authentic deed, that we read the heart, is only a half truth. It has to be balanced by that word of the Scottish bard : / '"What done was partly may compute We know not what's resisted." At the outset of your Christian career, therefore, j r ou will do well to REFRAIN FROM FORMING WRONG JUDGMENTS. The classic illustration cl the evil of criticising on hearsay is given by Charles Lamb. It -concerned one of his schoolfellows who fell under suspicion because he was observed, after dinner, carefully to gather up the remnants left at his table and to carry them away. It was rumoured that he privately devoured them in the night. He was watched but no traces of such midnight practices were discovered. He became an object of mystery and contempt among the boys of the school. Some reported that he had been seen to carry out of the bounds a large blue check handkerchief, full of something. Rumours multiplied, but the belief which generally prevailed was Ifhat he sold the food to beggars. None spoke to him: no one would play with him. One day the truth of the matter was discovered. Tracked by two of his schoolfellows, the boy was seen to enter a mean dwelling, inhabited by an honest couple come to decay. They were his parents who, save for the scraps which the lad conveyed to them, might have starved. "This young stork" as Lamb

ne Ministers' Association).

OUR SUNDAY MESSAGE

By George Henderson

puts it "at the expense of his own good name, had all the while been only feeding the older birds." He goes on to tell that, the governors of the school, after voting relief to the old: couple, presented the boy with a silver medal; and, on the occasion of its presentation, the steward read a lesson upon rash judgments to the assembled scholars. The principle illustrated there is of great importance. When you hear evil of any one, suspend judgment. Do not run out to meet every heated whelp of malice that runs with its head down and its tongue out. Worldly law, to say nothing of Christian love, would not. tolerate such conduct. "Doth our law judge any man before it hear him, and know what he doetli" asked the indignant Nicodemus John 7; 51, and a heathen pro-consul, refusing the claim of religious bigots to condemn a man unheard, said: "It. is not the manner of the Roman's to deliver any man to die, before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and, have licence to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him." Acts 25: 16. YOU WILL BE SORRY WHEN YOU KNOW There is another thing. The habit of criticising and indiscriminatingly judging, is one which inevitably brngs anguish of spirit, to the person who indulges it. Once, among a great crowd of people in a French town, the poet La Motte trod upon another man's foot. The man turned round, quiclkly and inllicted a violent blow on La Motte's head. The poet quietly said: "'Sir, you will be sorry for what, you have done when you know that I am blind." "You will be sorry when you know.)" How often that might be said of people who judge hastily and utter cruel words. "It would, ofttimes grieve us and make us sorely ashamed of ourselves if, when we have judged another severely, we should be shown a glimpse of his inner life, revealing hidden sorrows and struggles, which are the cause of the things in him we have blamed so much." "If I had known What troubles you were bearing, What, griefs were in the silence of your face, T would have been moje gentle and more caring, And tried to give you gladness for a spac,e. I would have brought more warmth ' into the place— If I had known. "If I had known What thoughts despairing drew you — Why do we never understand? I would have lent a little friendship to you, And slipped my hand within your lonely hand, And. made your stay more pleasant in the land, If I had known.