The Cloud of Witness Monday

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Monday. Eleventh after Trinity.

Spiritual Pride.

God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.--Luke xviii. II.

Judge not! the workings of his brain
And of his heart thou canst not see;
What looks to thy dim eyes a stain,
In God's pure light may only be
A scar, brought from some well-won field--
Where thou wouldst only faint and yield.

The look, the air that frets thy sight,
May be a token, that below
The soul has closed in deadly fight
With some eternal foe,
Whose glance would scorch thy smiling grace,
And cast thee shuddering on thy face!

The fall thou darest to despise,--
May-be the Angel's slackened hand
Has suffered it, that he may rise
And take a firmer, surer stand;
Or, trusting less to earthly things,
May henceforth learn to use his wings.

And judge none lost! but wait and see,
With hopeful pity, not disdain!
The depth of the abyss may be
The measure of the height of pain,
And love and glory that may raise
This soul to God in after days.
A. Proctor.

The pride of lettered ignorance, that binds
In chains of error our accomplished minds,
That seeks with all the splendour of the true,
A false religion!
Cowper.

They repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit shall say within themselves, "This was he, whom we had sometimes in derision, and a proverb of reproach; we fools accounted his life madness, and his end to be without honour: how is he numbered among the children of God, and his lot among the saints!
Wisdom v. 3-5.