The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1886-10-21

OF great value and Importance to those
who heard him; lesson founded upon
the principle of Gods eternal justice; and
one that would be safe rule for the shap-
ing of anylife. The expressing of mature,
deliberate judgment of a fellow man is
an important act upon the part of any
one, and should never be done save in
spirit of prayer. Men will judge, as well
as be judged. They are given reasoning
faculties that the mind may exercise the
power of judgment. Men cannot help
judging In fact, we believe it to be
design of the all-wise Creator that men
should Judge. Every life performs its
part, fills it's place, in the great array of
creation, the great world of living, NOV
ing things. That life has an influence,
leaves an impress, upon the world in
which it moves, and that impress is of the
exact character of the life-either good or
bad. The influence of the life works a
world of benefit or injury, just as its pow
ers have been employed. The world is
the beneficiary or the sufferer by that life.
Then why may not men Judge? If there
is aught of good taught, we must appro-
pirate that good to our benefit, if there is
evil, we must weigh the life, determine
the evil, and avoid its consequences.
The calm, deliberate Christian man will
not judge hastily or unwisely He weighs
the life of his neighbor with scales of i'm
partiality, and weights of charity; he
takes into consideration all the surround
ings of that life, all the discouragements
| and oppositions with which that life has
to contend, and there is a grain of allow
ance for the DOWNRIGHT side. The Sa-
vior never saw life too lowly for his at
tention and comparison, and rather than
| Judging with severe arraignment, and
passionate judgment, he looked with
Christian charity-just such as we may
exercise now-upon that life, and endeav-
ored to build up fainting purposes, and
instill new ambitions He judged right
eous judgment
How is it with his professed followers ?
Here is a man who has proclaimed in the
public congregation that he has expert
enced the baptism of the Holy Ghost;
that he feels within himself that perfect
love which tells him he is born into the
Kingdom of the Most High; that there is
within him now therefore no condemna-
ton. This with all the positiveness and
seeming :candor of which the human voice
and face are capable. We cannot, of
course, judge: such a life as that! Why
it would seem most positively wicked to
presume to cast even an insinuation of
the right of judgment upon such life.
That life is filed with charity. and love,
and holiness. Is this our judgment, then,
Of that life? 1t would seem SO on first
impulse, but we are to judge eintelligently,
and none save an intelligent judgment
can be arjghteous Judgment. In order to
render our verdict as fair and righteous
as possible, let US investigate. That life
steps boldly out before the world, and
proclaims its own righteousness. 1t de-
nounces other lives, not falling into its
way of thinking and acting, as unchris-
tian. Il am the representative of the true
Christianity-al those who do not do just
as I do, are hypocrites-I am the wayl'
There are three sentences-and three de-
liberate and wicked falsehoods. Christ
says Il came to do the will sof him that
sent me-" This mortal life which we are
considering asserts its own independence
and superiority. We therefore judge both
lives. That of the Savior we judge as the
perfect life-the Sun of Righteousness
the Light of the World; the other as the
miserable, unworthy, sacrilegious hypo-
crite. The mind possessed of ordinary
intelligence and sense of justice, it would
seem, can scarcely refrain from forming
such an opinion and Judgment. The
Savior taught humility, even that of the
simplicity of early childhood, the life we
are considering breaches self-righteous-
ness and mortal conceit. The one consid-
ers all the frailties of the mortal being,
and looks with charity upon these; the
| other attributes bad motives to lives as
good as itself, to say the least. and fails to
perceive anything good in those who do
not fully agree with it in all things.
The Savior says "this little child shall
be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven" ."
| The hypocrite says "this man, who has
lived a sober, industrious life during his
entire stay upon earth, and who has done
a great deal of good among his fellow
men, has, by refusing to follow me. and
take my life as the true type of Christian
character, destroyed all right to lay claim
to anything like Christianity" Such is
the reasoning of the hypocrite. He would
prostitute the holiness of the temple of
the Lord to the furtherance of his own
unreasonable aims. He would place the
most contemplate scheme evolved from
his befogged brain upon a par with the
Divinity of the Son of God. He ehas never
learned the lesson that a hypocrite can
only teach righteousness by the horror of
his example on the other side. For les
son in honest business methods, one would
not go to the convicted felon; for lesson
in temperance, one would scarcely go to
the tippler; for a lesson in righteousness,
one would scarcely go to one whose life is
at best but a fit subject for suspicion. We
are required to judge. When fellow
man says to us "you are not living right
you are not like me" we always feel that
a passage of Scripture was written
especially for that man: But that SER
want which knew his lords will and pre-
pared not himself, neither did according
to his will, shall be beaten with many
stripes"
We are to judge, but we are to judge
righteous judgment. We are to appro-
pirate all of good that we find in the lives
of those about US, and we are to shun the
evil traits that we will doubtless OCCASION
ally find We are to shape the trend of
our lives after the example placed before
us by the blessed Lord, and not after the
whims of our own imaginations. We
are to meet, and live, and act, upon plane