Today’s Manna

“The unkind man, the critic, the one who is full of self-conceit, deceives his own soul, though claiming to be a clear discerner of the defects of others. He who has a disposition to find fault, to be suspicious, to surmise, think and speak evil, has so cultivated this attribute of the evil one that the good qualities of his brethren and sisters in the church do not arrest his attention. If he thinks he has discovered a flaw in the character, a mistake in the life, he is very officious to aim at the mote, when the very trait of character which he has overlooked in himself, which is developed in doing this unchristlike work, is, in comparison to what he criticizes, when weighed in the golden balances of heaven as a beam in proportion to a mote.

“Ungenerous, unchristian expressions of judgment, of criticism, of condemnation of others, if not repented of, will sink the soul in ruin. The piety of the man who thus condemns others, is measured by the hidden motives, the secret plans and plottings of evil against those with whom he is at enmity. The value of his conduct, the real influence of his life, is summed up as wanting by the Lord of heaven, who reads the secrets of every soul.” ¹