^ None of us would, I suppose, venture in plain words to stand up and say : " I am an exception to your general confessions of sin," and most of us would be ready to unite in the acknowledg- ment : we have all " come short of the glory of God," though in our consciences there has never stirred the faintest movements of self-condemnation even whilst our lips have been uttering the confession. Do not shrink away in the crowd, my brother ! Come out to the front, and stand by yourself as God sees you, isolated. Look at your own actions ; never mind about other men's. Do not content yourselves with saying, " We have sinned " ; say, " / have sinned against Thee." God and you are as if alone in the universe. "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned." There are no crowds in God's eyes ; He deals with single souls. Every one of us — thou, and thou, and thou — must give account of himself to God,^
(5) But the most successful method of self-deception is to condemn heartily the sins of other men. If a man's own sin is held up before him a little disguised, he says, " How ugly it is ! " And if only for a moment he can be persuaded that it is not his own conduct but some other sinner's that he is judging, the in- stinctive condemnation comes. We have two sets of names for vices: one set which rather mitigates and excuses them, and another set which puts them in their real hideousness. We keep the palliative set for home consumption, and liberally distribute the plain-spoken ugly set amongst the vices and faults of our friends. The thing which I call in myself prudence I call in you meanness. The thing which you call in yourself generous living, you call in your friend filthy sensualism. That which, to the doer of it, is only righteous indignation, to the onlooker is passionate anger. That which, in the practiser of it, is no more
^A. Maclaren.
2 SAMUEL XII. 7 321
than a due regard for the interests of his own family and him- self in the future, is to the envious lookers-on shabbiness and meanness in money matters. That which, to the liar, is only prudent, diplomatic reticence, to the listener is falsehood. That which, in the man that judges his own conduct, is but " a choleric word," is, in his friend, when he judges him, " flat blasphemy."
^ It is always a sign of lack of knowledge of our own hearts when we judge self leniently and judge others censoriously. A painter, who was noted as a savage critic of other artists, when asked how he could ever pass any of his own work when he had such a keen critical standard, frankly declared : " I have only two eyes when I look at my own work, but am argus-eyed, have a hundred eyes, when I look at the work of others." This candid admission states the case in more things than artistic criticism.^
^ It may have been during the time of his undetected sin that David was summoned by Joab to Eabbah that the honour might accrue to him of capturing the city and closing the campaign against the Ammonites. It was most likely during that dark period of David's life. He went, glad to escape himself, if he might, amid the excitements of battle. He took the city. The splendid jewelled crown of the Ammonitish king was put upon his head. And with sharpest vengeance he punished the van- quished people with death. Doubtless they had been marked by notorious cruelty. But that he should torture them — " put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and make them pass through the brick-kiln " — shows a mind lost to magnanimity, full of unrest, and eager any way to escape from itself. Futile attempt! "The mind is its own place." So the poor self-deceived king played his part. He seemed the very embodiment of rigorous justice against the enemy, and yet had been enacting a mean, pitiless, vile tragedy against one of the most valiant of his soldiers in that war.^
Jack Barrett went to Quetta, Because they told him to. He left his wife at Simla
On three-fourths his monthly screw: Jack Barrett died at Quetta
Ere the next month's pay he drew. iH. Black. "G. T. Ooster.
DEUT.-ESTH. — 21
322 THOU ART THE MAN
Jack Barrett went to Quetta,
He didn't understand The reason of his transfer
From the pleasant mountain-land : The season was September,
And it killed him out of hand.
Jack Barrett went to Quetta And there gave up the ghost,
Attempting two men's duty In that very healthy post;
And Mrs. Barrett mourned for him Five lively months at most.
Jack Barrett's bones at Quetta
Enjoy profound repose ; But I shouldn't be astonished
If noiv his spirit knows The reason of his transfer
From the Himalayan snows.
And, when the Last Great Bugle Call
Adown the Hurnai throbs. When the last grim joke is entered
In the big black Books of Jobs, And Quetta's graveyards give again
Their victims to the air, I shouldn't like to be the man
Who sent Jack Barrett there.^