talker, and often had difficulties with her brethren and sisters in the church; for she thought it her duty to exercise a watchful care over them.  Whether she was self-deceived, or hypocritical, I cannot say; but she used to shed tears freely in her religious conversations.  She, however, as I have since learned, after maintaining her standing in the church for many years, apostatized and became openly abandoned.  You need not look over half a dozen parishes, anywhere, to find cases of a kindred character.

The humble Christian, who looks back to the “hole of the pit whence he was digged,” and remembers that he now stands by virtue of the same grace that took his feet out of the “horrible pit and miry clay,” will be the last person to vaunt over the fallen condition of his fellow-creatures.  He will look upon them with an eye of tender compassion; and his rebukes will be administered in a meek, subdued, and humble spirit, remembering the injunction of Paul, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”  But the spirit of which I have been speaking is not only carnal, but devilish.  The devil is the accuser of the brethren.

But charity not only rejoiceth not in iniquity, but, positively, rejoiceth in the truth—­is glad of the success of the gospel, and rejoices in the manifestation of the grace of God, by the exhibition of the fruits of his Spirit in the character and conduct of his people.  Hence, it will lead us to look at the bright side of men’s characters; and if they give any evidence of piety, to rejoice in it, and glorify God for the manifestation of his grace in them, while we overlook, or behold with tenderness and compassion, their imperfections.  And this accords with the feelings of the humble Christian.  He thinks so little of himself, and feels such a sense of his own imperfections, that he quickly discerns the least evidence of Christian character in others; and he sees so much to be overlooked in himself, that he is rather inclined to the extreme of credulity, in judging the characters of others.  He is ready, with Paul, to esteem himself “less than the least of all saints;” and where he sees any evidence of piety in others, he can overlook many deficiencies.

I am persuaded, that in few things we are more deficient than in the exercise of joy and gratitude for the grace of God manifested in his children.  There are few of the epistles of Paul which do not commence with an expression of joy and thanksgiving for the piety of those to whom he was writing.  I have been surprised, on looking over them, to find these expressions so full and so frequent.  They are too numerous to be quoted in this place; but I entreat you to examine them for yourself.  Even in regard to the Corinthians, among whom so many evils existed, he says, “I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ.”  But who among us is ever heard thanking God for the