wish to say to you at present: the evil conduct of such a person is become notorious. Very well; whoever of you is without sin, let him cast the first stone! If, before God, you have nothing, perhaps more criminal, with which to reproach yourself speak with freedom; condemn, in the severest manner, his fault, and open upon him the whole flood of your derisions and censures: it is permitted to you. Ah! you, who so hardly speak of it, you are more fortunate; but are you more innocent than he? You are thought to possess more virtue, and more regard for your duty; but God, who knoweth you, will he judge like men? Were the darkness which conceals your shame to be dissipated, would not every stone you throw recoil upon yourselves? Were an unexpected circumstance to betray your secret, would not the audacity and malicious joy with which you censure, add additional ridicule to your confusion and disgrace? Ah! it is only to artifices and arrangements, which the justice of God may disconcert and lay open in an instant, that you are indebted for this phantom of reputation on which you pride yourselves so much. You perhaps border on the moment which shall reveal your shame; and, far from blushing in secret and in silence, when faults like your own are made known, you speak of and relate them with pleasure, and you furnish the public with traits which one day it will employ against yourself. It is the threat and prediction of our Saviour: " All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." You pierce your brother with the sword of the tongue; with the same weapon shall you be pierced in your turn; and though you were even exempted from the vices you so boldly censure in others, the just God will deliver you up to it.
Disgrace is the common punishment of pride. Peter, on the evening of the Lord's supper, never ceased to exaggerate the guilt of the disciple by whom his Master was to be betrayed. He was the most anxious of them all to know his name, and the most forward to express his detestation of his perfidy; and, immediately after, he falls himself into the infidelity which he had so lately blamed with such pride and confidence. Nothing draws down upon us the wrath and curse of God so much as the malicious pleasure with which we magnify the faults of our brethren; and his mercy is incensed, that these afflicting examples, which he permits for the sole purpose of recalling us to our own weaknesses and awakening our vigilance, should flatter our pride, and excite only our derisions and censures.
You depart, then, from the rules of Christian humility, when you permit yourselves to censure the faults, however public, of your brother; but you likewise essentially wound those of charity; for charity never faileth says the apostle. Now, if the vices of your brother be known to those who listen to you, to what purpose, then, do you repeat them afresh? What, indeed, can be your intention? To blame his conduct? But, is his shame not already sufficient? Would you wish to overwhelm an unfortunate wretch, and give the last stab to a man already pierced with a thousand
