------------------------------

The Third Weed In Advent

"Right judgment"

"Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come."

A Prayer for the Week
Grant us by Thy Holy Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in His holy comfort.

------------------------------

[020]

Saturday. Third Week in Advent.

Right judgment.

He that judgeth me is the Lord.--1 Cor. iv. 4.

     By things which do appear
We judge amiss. The flower, which wears its way
Through stony *****s, lives on from day to day
Approved for living,--let the rest be gay
And sweet as summer! Heaven within the reed
Lists for the flute-note; in the folded seed
It sees the bud, and in the Will the Deed.
D. Greenwell.

Is this your Christian counsel? Out upon ye!
Heaven is above all yet. There sits a Judge
That no ding can corrupt.
Shakespeare.

There the tears of earth are dried,
   There its hidden things are clear;
There the work of life is tried
   By a juster Judge than here.
      Father, in Thy gracious keeping
      Leave we now Thy servant sleeping.
Ellerton.

How shall we judge their present, we who have never seen
That which is past for ever, and that which might have been?
Measuring by ourselves, unwise indeed are we!
Measuring what we know by what we can hardly see.
F. R. Havergal.

Be not proud of well-doing; for the judgment of God is far different from the judgment of men, and that often offendeth Him which pleaseth them.
Thos. A. Kempis.

God judges by a light
     Which baffles mortal sight;
And the useless-seeming man the crown hath won.
     In His vast world above,--
     A world of broader love,--
God hath some grand employment for His son.
Faber.

------------------------------

[021]

Sunday.

Right judgment.

With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man's judgment.--Ep. For The Day.

        They extol
Things vulgar and, well weigh'd, scarce warth the praise.
They praise and they admire they know not what,
And know not whom, but as one leads the other.
And what delight to be by such extoll'd,
To live upon their tongues, and be their talk,
Of whom to be disprais'd were no small praise?--
His lot who dares be singularly good!
Milton.

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Shakespeare.

Where men of judgment creep, and feel their way,
The positive pronounce without dismay:
Their want of light and intellect supplied
By sparks Absurdity strikes out of Pride:
Without the means of knowing right from wrong,
They always are decisive, clear and strong.
Cowper.

But thou, why dost thou judge thy brother? . . . for we must all stand before the judgment seat of God.
Rom. xiv. 10 (R.V.).

I know my own appointed patch in the world.
Browning.

For whom the heart of man shuts out,
Sometimes the heart of God takes in,
And fences them all round about
With silence 'mid the world's loud din.
Lowell.

Thou art not the more holy for being praised, nor the more worthless for being dispraised. What thou art, that thou art; neither by words canst thou be made greater than what thou art in the sight of God.
Thos. A Kempis.

Comments