Columbia Democrat and Bloomsburg general advertiser. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1850-1866, 1860-04-07
FAULT SEEKERS.

voice of praise is low and feeble, it issues
from the generous and discriminating few
its tone is readily drowned by the loud
cries of condemnation roared from the lips
of the captious million. No talent, no taste
no information are requisite to qualify the
self-constituted censor for his office.
"A man must his time to every trade
! Save censor--critics all arc ready made"
says the poet These surgeons of litera-
ture pass through no college, and ehtn no
diplomas, to establish their right to cut and
slash, dismember and decapitate, the fair
offsprings of mghtbr mind. Walter
5ctott apply designatcs them as "tinkers
who unable to make pots and pans them
selves set up for members of them"
In Art asin Literature, their eyes search
out defects alone, and are as blind to beau.
ties as bats to sunshine In the wonders
of science they behold not the marvels she
has achieved but the desirable ends she has
failed to compass.
Their indulgence of this fault, finding
passion gradually renders them skeptical
of the existence of all genius and greatness
all truth and triumph. They believe in
nothing but the earths imperfections and
man short comings.
But it is in the everyday contact with
humanity that this condemning hypocriti-
cal spirit proves most tormentng and most
disastrous. The constitutional fault seeker
never makes new acquaintance without
tearing the unlucky individual character
to pieces, to search out all its crooked
turns, sharp angles, and weak points. If
the nature he is dissecting chance to be one
enriched with many virtues-yirtues which
the ready cen ;or never himself possessed
he tries to drag it down to his own level,
by pronouncing its graces assumed and its
goodness spurious. If, on the other hand
it be a temperament full Of faults, he glo-
ries over their discovery, and points them
out with compassionlcss zeal. He never
admits, as excuse, the plea of inherited
evil, the lack of early discipline, the con.
tagion Of forced association and he nev.
er dreams that he is prone to the same
failings himself, but lifts up his eyes and
hands and thanks Heaven that he is ''not
such a man" Not a foible escapes his
keen scrutiny--he drags the merost weak
nesscs into broad light-magnifes them
into vices, unsparingly judges and con-
demns the culprit, and wholly that he is
making mercilcss law by which he will
be Judged in turn.
Is it thus that the angels, with their
pure eyes, look down on mortals? Those
eyes pierce the coarse veil of flesh, and
gaze into the depths of the spirit; there
fore all our impertections they must sure
ly see; but upon these their holy contem,
plation never dwells. They seek out the
hidden gems of the mind, and toiling re-
move the surrounding ore of evil, and gen
fly polish the least valuable jewel, with the
attrition of circumstance, until all its spar
kle is developed. They search out and
foster every little, weak, struggling germ
Of goodness give it the SUNSHINE of their &C.
lestial smiles, and when it droops, as
though about to die, pour upon it the re-
frcshing rain of their pitying tears. They
look upon a mans virtues as the heaven
ordered flowers in the garden of his heart,
on his faults as the weeds, sown by an en-
emy, that must be rooted out with tender.
est hands, for fear that some delicate violet
of promise may be be plucked up with the
nightshade beside which it grew.
Should it not be the perpetual aspiration
of that man who hopes to associate with
angels hereafter to make this, his prcpara
tory life, approach as neraly as possible
to the lives of the wished for companions
of his future II he would cultivate the
angelic within himself, (Which alone can
bring him in communion with angelic cx-
istences,) y h. must cast out the spirit of
fault-seeking, and substitute in its place
that loving gaze which beholds the least
precious gem of worth, though buried deep
beneath the miro of impurity-that holy
vision which discovers the feeblest shoot of
virtue, though overshadowed by the Haun-
ting weeds of Folly.-N Y, ledger,