"No one thing," wrote Henry Ward Beecher, "does human life need more than a kind consideration of men's faults." Every one sins; every one needs forbearance. Their own imperfections should teach men to be merciful. God is merciful because He is perfect. As men grow toward the Divine they become gentle, forgiving, compassionate. The absence of a merciful spirit is evidence of the want of true holiness. A soul that has really entered into the life of Christ carries in itself a store of enrichment and a cordial for helpless souls around it.
Do we who bear the name of Christian Scientists sufficiently ponder the heart-searching, love-begetting nature of the religion of our Master; its broad humanity, tolerant forbearance, temperate procedure, divine compassion, merciful, yet exact justice, and philanthropy? It truly has its just and radical interpretation, but too long has this aspect of the Gospels been made the only interpretation of the simple message of the Nazarene. Jesus spoke from the depths of his own experience. Flesh of our flesh, he knew what was in the heart of man, both good and bad, strong and weak. He knew the temptations of the human mind, and was tenderly forbearant of them. His enemies really paid him the grandest tribute he ever received when they scornfully said he was the friend of sinners. Never was there a character so above worldliness and impurity as his. Yet he was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." He was divinely heroic, supremely unselfish, and humanly tender. He always looked on both sides of all questions in which motive and the salvation of a character were involved. Remembering his parable of the Prodigal, and of the two debtors, his divinely compassionate treatment of the penitent Magdalene, his words to the adulterous woman, and lastly his declaration that the harlots would enter the kingdom of Heaven before the self-righteous Pharisees, can we afford to do less in life than did the world's most Scientific and successful reformer and Religious Teacher? In no one of his parables did Jesus ever excuse guilt. He based all his declarations of forgiveness upon the sincere penitence and sorrow for wrong-doing that his spiritualized and compassionate eye detected in the sinner's thought. Or, perchance, he perceived its first beams shining through the dark clouds of depravity and impurity, as one sees the first faint lights of a ship as it nears the home harbor after months of tossing upon the stormy waves of foreign seas. Did he close his eyes to this faint, struggling ray? Did he consider it too slight to use as a cornerstone for the superstructure of the Temple of God? Was he blind to its worth because its material and evil surroundings, in the still evil character, almost hid its real nature and value? Did he pass it by to look for greater evidence of reformation in some other character? No. He first saw its worth, then he gently nurtured it and tenderly cultivated it, as the florist does a specially delicate and tender plant. He protected it as a little seedling of virtue, purity, manhood, womanhood. He carefully and patiently removed from about its gradual growth the hard, coarse soil of error that mentally surrounded it, and under the life-giving rays of divine Love reflected by him, it steadily grew into larger and nobler character, till at last the little ray that was called "sorrow for wrong-doing," and the first faint beams of the love of the good and pure, became the celestial brilliancy of a Christ-like life. Jesus let the dead past bury its dead. Never did he taunt the honest penitent, the reformed Prodigal or Magdalene, with even a hint or suggestion of the days that were past, or the error that had been seen and honestly repented of. Let us frankly examine our hearts, our methods, ways, and means, and honestly ask ourselves if we follow his example, and let the dead past of error bury its dead, when genuine reformation has followed repentance. Do we blot out the dark past of the erring careers of our friends and enemies, and know and love them with heartfelt love and trust as they tread the safe and upward pathway of true living? After a friend apologizes for wrong-doing do we still force upon him our stern, Calvin-like condemnation? Do we enumerate all our neighbor's faults to him every time some one of them happens to force us to put into practice just a small portion of the religion of Jesus, Love your enemies, and overcome evil with Good? Do we let the one cardinal fault or weak point of an otherwise noble and well developed character blind us to the ninety-and-nine noble and beautiful traits? In short, are we theoretically followers of Jesus in these true methods of dealing with our fellows, and practically, to all intents and purposes, doers of things that contradict alike the spirit of Christ and the religion of Love? Human creeds, beliefs, opinions, dogmas, ritualism, form, scholastic theology, superstition and supernaturalism, blind faith and personality, have virtually nothing to do with religion. There are no religions as there are no gods. Religion is one. It is simply spiritual goodness. It is Love lived. It is that which interprets the deep things of the Spirit to the men and the women of this world, whose experiences have so purified and inspired their hearts that they no longer estimate bliss, health, and joy from a material basis, but from the sure foundation of spirituality. Are we livers of the Golden Rule? Do we not often love in the ratio that we find we are loved, and in many instances wait to find that we are first loved, before we even allow ourselves to recognize the worth of a character or heart that so far has made known no affection for us? This is, of course, searching self-questioning, but unless the motive-springs of character are right, the whole mechanism of living is perpetually out of order, and we lack the ability to retain friends and lose enemies by loving them. Love as the divine Principle of being is the essence of the allied graces—compassion, tolerance, and patience. These three constitute a holy alliance and are indispensable to a consistent and Christian character. A narrow-minded person is invariably intolerant, cruel, abstractly just rather than lovingly and mercifully exact. Intelligent and spiritual loyalty to God—Good—as Principle, always includes and involves loyalty to all true representatives of the Truth on earth. Blind, unthinking, and miscalled loyalty to personality or human opinion, creates disloyalty to both God and His idea—man. If thought is governed by God, it follows scientifically that loyalty to every honest and spiritual individual becomes an inevitable sequence. And that man or woman who reflects in the greatest degree the Christ image will receive the supreme essence of loyalty, even the love that begets a discipleship and following that knows neither limit of time nor numbers, and that neither earth nor hell can shake or destroy. In love to and for God is included love for our fellowmen, bond and free, Gentile and believer, great and humble, rich and poor. Love evolves patience, forbearance, calm judicial judgment, tolerance, pity, mercy, compassion, and radicalism in metaphysical ideas of life. These in their turn create judgment that is righteous rather than judgment by appearances, lofty hope, faith and optimism, deep and strong faith in the power of divine Love and Good to reach even the lowest of earth's creatures, spiritual serenity, calm strength, tenderness and selflessness.
Judge not hastily of others
But thine own salvation mind;
Nor be lynx-eyed to thy brother's,
To thine own offences blind.
God alone
Discerns thine own
And the hearts of all mankind.
