CRITICISM.
Grant me patience, just Heaven! Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst—the cant of criticism is the most tormenting.
Criticism is not religion, and by no process can it be substituted for it. It is not the critic's eye, but the child's heart, that most truly discerns the countenance that looks out from the pages of the gospel.
Why will you be always sallying out to break lances with other people's wind-mills, when your own is not capable of grinding corn for the horse you ride?
An over-readiness to criticise or to depreciate a minister of Christ is proof of a lack of devotion to Christ.
How many people would like to get up in a social prayer-meeting to say a few words for Christ, but there is such a cold spirit of criticism in the church that they dare not do it.
With pleasure own your errors past,
And make each day a critic on the last.
CROSS BEARING.
Taking up one's cross, my dear, means simply that you are to go the road which you see to be the straight one; carrying whatever you find is given you to carry, as well and stoutly as you can; without making faces, or calling people to come and look at you. Above all, you are neither to load, nor unload yourself, nor cut your cross to your own liking.
