But I go farther: when your brothers disgrace should even be certain, and the malignity of reports should have added nothing to its criminality; how can you know that the very shame of seeing it so public may not have recalled him to himself; and that a sincere repentance, and tears of compunction, may not have already effaced and expiated it before God? Years are not always required for grace to triumph over a rebellious heart; there are victories which it leaves not to time; and a public disgrace often turns out the moment of mercy, which decides upon the conversion of a sinner. Now, if your brother is in a state of repentance, are you not unjust and cruel to revive faults which his penitence has effaced, and which the Lord hath ceased to remember? Do you recollect the sinful woman in the gospel? Her irregularities were notorious, seeing she had been known through the whole city as a prostitute; nevertheless, when the Pharisees reproached her with her sins, her tears and love had effaced them at the feet of our Saviour; the goodness of God had remitted her errors, yet the malignity of men was unable to obliterate them.
Lastly. Your brothers disgrace was public; that is to say, it was confusedly known that his conduct was not free from reproach, and you come to particularize the circumstances, to proclaim his deeds, to explain the motives, and to lay open the whole mystery; to confirm what they but imperfectly knew; to tell them of: what they knew not at all; and to applaud yourself for appearing better instructed in your brother's misfortune than those who listen to you. Some degree of character, though wavering, yet remained to him; he still preserved, at least, some remains of honour, a spark of life, and you completely extinguish it. I do not add, that these public reports, perhaps originated from people of no character, persons of neither reputation nor consequence to convince. Hitherto none durst yield credit to rumours so poorly supported; but you, who, by your rank, birth, and dignities, have acquired an influence over the minds, remove every shadow of doubt or uncertainty. Your name alone will now serve as a proof against the innocency of your brother; and in future it will be cited in justification of the general reports. Now, can any thing be harder or more unjust, both on account of the injury you do to him, and of the service you fail to perform? Your silence on his fault might alone perhaps have stopped the public defamation, and you would have been cited to clear his innocence, as you now are to blacken it. And what more respectable use could you have made of your rank and influence? The more [you are exalted in the world, the more ought you to be religious and circumspect on the reputation of your brethren; the more ought a noble decency to render you reserved on their errors. The discourses of the vulgar are soon forgot, they expire in coming into the world; but the words of the great never fall in vain, and the public is always a faithful echo, either to the praises they bestow, or to the censures they allow themselves to utter. My God! thou teachest us, by concealing thyself the sins of men, to conceal them on our part; to reveal our faults, thou waitest with a merciful patience the day
