are by nature fault-finders and detractors. " Whereunto shall I esteem this generation?" says Christ. "They are like children sitting in the market-place, who, crying to their companions, say: We have piped to you and you have not danced; we have lamented and you have not mourned. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say: He hath a devil: the Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners."
Even when uninfluenced by envy or hatred or race prejudice or religious bigotry, our opinions of others are likely to be superficial and wrong. " Man looketh upon the outward appearance." Who of us, were he present that day in the porch of the Temple, would have hesitated for an instant as to the respective merits of the Pharisee and the publican? Would we not, in the words of St. James, have deferred to the proud Pharisee with his golden ring and his fine apparel and his stately self-importance, and said to him: "Sit thou here well;" and to the humble publican in his mean attire would we not have answered roughly: " Stand thou there, or sit under my footstool! " For the publicans were Jewish traitors who had sold themselves into the service of their Roman conquerors, for whom they harvested the public revenues, and such was their genius for avarice and extortion that their name soon became a synonym for all that was base and despicable. Even Christ classes them with harlots. I know nothing in modern soci-
