April Thirteenth.
THE CAMEL AND THE GNAT.
"Ye blind guides, who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel."—Matt. xxiii. 24.
THE Scribes and Pharisees were indeed strict in the rigid performance of all the ceremonials of religion, but neglected the weightier matters of the law. It was for this neglect of inward purity, that the Lord so frequently denounced them as hypocrites, or as whited sepulchres. Men are often deceived by outward appearances, but God never. Men judge of the heart by words, God of words by the heart. God's judgment is from within, from motives to actions, and is therefore righteous; the judgment of men is from without, from words to motives, and is, consequently, often deceptive. Men may deceive each other by concealing their motives, but no one can deceive himself, for every one must be aware of the motive whence his actions spring. A show of religion without the reality is hypocrisy! it is this that betrays the truth to the mockery and scorn of the world, as Judas did Jesus. The being scrupulously exact in ceremonies, may indeed cover over inward evil, but it will not eradicate it. We may, like the Scribes and Pharisees of old, pay our tithe of mint, anise, and cummin,—while at the same time we neglect to offer the larger tithes of the wheat and the barley—the good and truth of the inward life. Exactness in externals will not relieve us from the sin of neglecting the weightier matters of the law of life—judgment, mercy, and faith! These, saith the Lord, ought to be done, and the
