The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales Part 9

Who has given thee the hardihood to take upon thyself the office of Him Who has received from the Eternal Father all judgment? That is to say, all power of judging in Heaven and on earth? He observed that a want of balance of mind, very common among men, leads them to judge of what they do not know, and not to judge of what they do know. They, as St. Jude declares, _blaspheme in what they know not, and corrupt themselves in what they know_.[2] They are blind to what pa.s.ses in their own homes, but preternaturally clear-sighted to all happening in the houses of others.

Now what is this that a man knows not at all? Surely, the heart; the secret thoughts of his neighbour. And yet how eager is he to dip the fingers of his curiosity in this covered dish reserved for the Great Master. And what is it that a man knows best of all, or at least ought to know? Surely, his own heart; his own secret thoughts. Nevertheless, he fears to enter into himself, and to stand in his own presence as a criminal before his judge. He dreads above aught besides the implacable tribunal of his own conscience, itself alone more surely convicting than a thousand witnesses.

Our Blessed Father pictures very vividly this kind of injustice in his Philothea, where he says: "It is equally necessary in order to escape being judged that we both judge ourselves, and that we refrain from judging others. Our Lord forbids the latter[3] and His Apostle commands the former.

If we would judge ourselves we should not be judged.[4] Our way is the very reverse. What is forbidden to us we are continually doing. Judging our neighbour on all possible occasions, and what is commanded us, namely, to judge ourselves, that the last thing we think of."[5]

"A certain woman" (Blessed Francis continued with a smile), "all her life long had on principle done exactly the contrary to what her husband wanted her to do. In the end she fell into a river and was drowned. Her husband tried to recover the body, but was found fault with for going up the stream, since she must, necessarily, float down with the current. 'And do you really imagine,' he exclaimed, 'that even her dead body could do anything else but contradict me?' We are, most of us, very like that woman," said the Saint. "Yet it is written: _Judge not, and you shall not be judged; condemn not, and you shall not be condemned._"[6]

How, then, you will say, is it lawful to have judges and courts of justice, since man may not judge our neighbour? I answer this objection in Blessed Francis' own words:

"But may we, then, under no circ.u.mstances judge our neighbour? Under no circ.u.mstances whatever--for in a court of justice it is G.o.d, Philothea, not man, who judges and p.r.o.nounces sentence. It is true that He makes use of the voice of the magistrate, but only to render His own sentence audible to us. Earthly judges are His spokesmen and interpreters, nor ought they to decide anything but as they have learnt from Him of Whom they are the oracles. It is when they do otherwise, and follow the lead of their own pa.s.sions, that they, and not G.o.d, judge, and that consequently they themselves will be judged. In fact, it is forbidden to men, _as_ men, to judge others.[7] This is why Scripture gives the name of G.o.ds[8] to judges, because when judging they hold the place of G.o.d, and Moses for that reason is called the G.o.d of Pharaoh."[9]

You ask if we are forbidden to entertain doubts about our neighbour when founded on good and strong reasons. I answer we are not so forbidden, because to suspend judgment is not to judge, but only to take a step towards it. We must, nevertheless, beware of being thereby hurried on to form a hasty judgment, for that is the rock on which so many make s.h.i.+pwreck; that is the flare of the torch in which so many thoughtless moths singe their tiny wings.

In order that we may avoid this danger he gives us an excellent maxim, one which is not only useful, but necessary to us. It is that, however many aspects an action may have, the one we should dwell upon should be that which is the best.

If it is impossible to excuse an action, we can at least modify our blame of it by excusing the intention, or we may lay the blame on the violence of the temptation, or impute it to ignorance, or to the being taken by surprise, or to human weakness, so as at least to try to lessen the scandal of it. If you are told that by doing this you are blessing the unrighteous and seeking excuses for sin, you may reply that without either praising or excusing his sin you can be merciful to the sinner.

You may add that judgment without mercy will be the lot of those who have no pity for the misfortunes or the infirmities of their brother, and who in him despise their own flesh. We all are brethren, all of one flesh.

In fact, as says our Blessed Father, those who look well after their own consciences rarely fall into the sin of rash judgment. To judge rashly is proper to slothful souls, which, because they never busy themselves with their own concerns, have leisure to devote their energies to finding fault with others.

An ancient writer expresses this well. Men who are curious in their inquiries into the lives of others are mostly careless about correcting their own faults. The virtuous man is like the sky, of which the stars are, as it were, the eyes turned in upon itself.

[Footnote 1: Rom. ii. 1.]

[Footnote 2: St. Jude 10.]

[Footnote 3: St. Matt. vii. 1.]

[Footnote 4: 1 Cor. xi. 31.]

[Footnote 5: _The Devout Life_, Part iii. 28.]

[Footnote 6: St. Luke vi. 37.]

[Footnote 7: _The Devout Life_, Part iii. 28.]

[Footnote 8: Psalm lx.x.xi. 1, 6.]

[Footnote 9: Exod. vii. 1.]

UPON JUDGING OURSELVES.

"We do," as Blessed Francis has said, "exactly the reverse of what the Gospel bids us do. The Gospel commands us to judge ourselves severely and exactly, while it forbids us to judge our brethren. If we did judge ourselves, we should not be judged by G.o.d, because, forestalling His judgment and confessing our faults, we should escape His condemnation. On the other hand, who are we that we should judge our brethren, the servants of another? To their own Master they rise or fall.

"Let us not judge before the time until the Lord shall reveal what is hidden in darkness and pierce the wall of the temple to show what pa.s.ses therein. Man judges by appearances only. G.o.d alone sees the heart; and it is by that which is within that true judgment is made of that which is without.

"So rash are we in our judgments that we as often as not seize the firebrand by the burning end; that is, we condemn ourselves while in the very act of rebuking others. The reproach of the Gospel, _Physician, heal thyself_,[1] we may take to ourselves. So also that other, _Why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, and seest not the beam that is in thy own eye_?[2] To notice which way we are going is the first condition of our walking in the right way, according to the words of David, _I have thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies_.[3] So, on the other hand, we go astray if we do not pay attention to the path we are following. Judge not others and you will not be judged; judge yourselves, and G.o.d will have mercy on you."

[Footnote 1: St. Luke iv. 23]

[Footnote 2: St. Matt. vii. 3]

[Footnote 3: Psalm cxviii. 59]

UPON SLANDER AND DETRACTION.

There is a difference between uttering a falsehood and making a mistake--for to lie is to say what one knows or believes to be false; but to mistake is to say, indeed, what is false, but what one nevertheless thinks in good faith to be true. Similarly, there is a great difference between slandering our neighbour and recounting his evil deeds. The wrong doing of our neighbour may be spoken of either with a good or with a bad intention. The intention is good when the faults of our neighbour are reported to one who can remedy them, or whose business it is to correct the wrong-doer, whether for the public good or for the sinner's own.

Again, there is no harm in speaking among friends of harm done, provided it be from friendliness, benevolence, or compa.s.sion; and this more especially when the fault is public and notorious.

We slander our neighbour, then, only when, whether true or false, we recount his misdeeds with intention to harm him, or out of hatred, envy, anger, contempt, and from a wish to take away his fair name.

We slander our neighbour when we make known his faults, though neither obliged so to do nor having in view his good nor the good of others. The sin of slander is mortal or venial according to the measure of the wrong we may thereby have done to our neighbour.

Our Blessed Father used to say that to do away with slander would be to do away with most of the sins of mankind. He was right, for of sins of thought, word, and deed, the most frequent and often the most hurtful in their effects are those committed with the tongue. And this for several reasons.

Firstly, sins of thought are only hurtful to him who commits them. They are neither occasion for scandal, nor do they annoy anyone, nor give anyone bad example. G.o.d alone knows them, and it is He alone who is offended by them.

Then, too, a return to G.o.d by loving repentance effaces them in a moment, and heals the wound which they have inflicted on the heart.

Sins of the tongue, on the other hand, are not so readily got rid of. A harmful word can only be recalled by retracting it, and even then the minds of our hearers mostly remain infected with the poison we poured in through the ears; and this, in spite of our humbling ourselves to recall what we have said.

Secondly, sins of deed, when they are publicly known, are followed by punishment. This renders them rarer, because fear of the penalty acts as a curb on even the basest of mankind.

But slander (except the calumny be of the most atrocious and aggravated kind) is not, generally speaking, such as comes before the eye of the law.

On the contrary, if in the guise of bantering it is ingenious and subtle it pa.s.ses current for gallantry and wit.

This is why so many people fall into this evil; for, says an ancient writer: "Impunity is a dainty allurement to sin."

Thirdly, slandering finds encouragement in the very small amount of rest.i.tution and reparation made for this fault. Indeed, in my opinion, those who direct souls in the tribunal of penance are a little too indulgent, not to say lax, in this matter.

If anyone has inflicted a bodily injury on another see how severely the justice of the law punishes the outrage. In olden days the law of retaliation demanded an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. If a man stole the goods of another he was condemned to the galleys, or even to the gibbet. But in the case of slander, unless, as I have said, it be of the most highly aggravated kind, there is scarcely a thought of making reparation, even by a courteous apology. Yet those who sit in high places value their reputation much more than riches, or life itself, seeing that among all natural blessings, honour undoubtedly holds the first rank.

Since, then, we cannot gain admittance into heaven without having restored that which belongs to another, let the slanderer consider how he can possibly hope for an entrance there unless he re-establishes his neighbour's reputation, which he tried to destroy by detraction.

UPON HASTY JUDGMENTS.

Our Blessed Father insisted most earnestly upon the difference which exists between a vice and sin, reproving those who spoke of a person who had committed one or more grave faults as vicious.

"Virtuous habits," he would say, "not being destroyed by one act contrary to them, a man cannot be branded as intemperate because he has once been guilty of intemperance."

Thus when he heard anyone condemned as bad because he had committed a bad act, he took pains with his accustomed gentleness to modify the charge by making a distinction between _vice_ and _sin_, the former being a habit, the latter an isolated act.

"Vice," he said, "is a habit, sin, the outcome of that habit; and just as one swallow does not make a summer, so one act of sin does not make a person vicious. That is to say, it does not render him a sinner in the sense of being steeped in and wholly given over to the dominion of the particular vice, the act of which he has committed once, or even more than once."

Being asked whether in conformity with this principle it would not be equally wrong to praise anyone for a single act of virtue, as if that virtue were his or her constant habit, he replied: "You must remember that we are forbidden to judge our neighbour in the matter of the evil which he may appear to do, but not in the good. On the contrary, we may and should suppose that he has the good habit from which the act seen by us naturally springs. Nor can we err in such a supposition, since the very perfection of charity consists in its excess. But when we judge evil of others, our tongue is like the lancet in the surgeon's hand, and you know how careful he must be not to pierce an artery in opening a vein. We must only judge from what we see. We may say that a man has blasphemed and sworn, if we have heard him do so; but we may not in that account alone say that he is a blasphemer; that is, that he has contracted the habit of blasphemy, subst.i.tuting the vice for the sin."

The objection was raised that it would follow that we must never attempt to judge whether a person is or is not in a state of grace, however holy his life may seem to be; since no one knows whether he is worthy of love or of hate, and least of all we, who know our neighbour far less intimately than he knows himself. To this he replied, that if faith, according to St.

James, is known by its works,[1] much more is charity so known, since it is a more active virtue, its works being the sparks from seeing which we learn that its fire is still burning somewhere. And though when we saw a sin, which is undoubtedly mortal, being committed, we might have said that the sinner was no longer in a state of grace, how do we know that a moment afterwards G.o.d may not have touched his heart, and that he may not have been converted from his evil ways by an act of contrition? This is why we must always fear to judge evil of others, but as regards judging well, we are free to do so as much as we please. Charity grows more and more by hoping all good of its neighbour, by thinking no evil, by rejoicing in truth and goodness, but not in iniquity.

[Footnote 1: St. James ii. 17, 26.]

UPON RIDICULING ONE'S NEIGHBOUR.

When in company he heard anyone being turned into ridicule, he always showed by his countenance that the conversation displeased him, and would try to turn the subject by introducing some other. When unsuccessful in this he would give the signal to cease, as is done in tournaments when the combatants are becoming too heated, and thus put a stop to the combat, crying: "This is too much! This is trampling too violently on the good man!