A CHRISTIAN man had once, on a public occasion, so roughly and severely taken an erring brother to task for a fault, that, disheartened and downcast, the erring brother seemed ever to carry about with him the brand of the chastisement. The chastisement seems, however, to have had a softening influence on the chastiser, for afterward he would urge others always to speak kindly to the erring-always to help Christ's feeble ones, and never to hinder any; and, above all things, to be very, very careful in reproof. He would say, " It would have been better for me to have left the few travel stains on my poor brother's feet, than to have taken, as I did, boiling water to wash them. I felt sick at heart to see him unable to walk, because/had scalded his feet. It isn't every one that is fit to wash a disciple's feet."
No, dear reader, alas, it is not; fault finding is not washing the feet; exposing one another's shame is not the ministry of Christ for one another. The devil can expose our sins even to God, but he cannot remove—nor does he wish to do so—one sin from God's people. It would be better to hold one's peace about our fellow Christians than so roughly to handle them that their feet should be turned out of the way. E.