First:—Be sure that you have real cause to cast blame, be sure that you are not committing a great injustice, and doing another a grievous injury which is unmerited.
"Do to others as you would they should do to you." Consider how miserable you would feel were you the subject of unmerited blame.
Secondly:—Be merciful in attributing blame even when it is deserved. Remember that you yourself are not guiltless. There are things that you have done which deserve censure quite as much as those things you blame in others. One day a woman, taken in adultery, was brought before Christ, and the Jews desired to stone her to death because of her sin. Then our Lord said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." And when they heard it, being convicted by their own consciences, they went out, one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto the last.
I say to you: when you are inclined to cast blame, even when just, think, "Am I without sin, that I should judge and condemn another?"
XLVI.
PETTY DISHONESTY.
9th Sunday after Trinity.
S. Luke xvi, 3, 4.
"What shall I do?—I am resolved what to do."
INTRODUCTION.—The dishonest Steward in to-day's Gospel shows us the natural tendency of the human heart when in a scrape—to have recourse to dishonesty to escape from it. He knows that he is about to be turned out of his stewardship because he has been wasteful—not dishonest, but wasteful. He has not been a prudent and saving steward, but a sort of happy-go-lucky man who has not kept the accounts carefully, and has been content so long as he has not lost much money. So soon as he sees himself about to be turned out of his stewardship, he is wakened out of his easy-going ways with a shock, and he says to himself, "Here am I in a predicament! I shall lose my livelihood, and am not likely to get another situation; I am too old to work with my hands for my living, and I have too much self-respect to try. What can I do?—I am resolved what to do. I will cheat my master."