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them into vices, unsparingly judges and condemns the culprit, and wholly forgets that he is making a merciless law by which he will be judged in turn.
Is it thus that the angels with their pure eyes, look down upon mortals? Those eyes pierce the coarse veil of flesh, and gaze into the depths of the spirit; therefore all our imperfections they must surely see; but upon these their holy contemplation never dwells. They seek out the hidden gems of the mind, and toilingly remove the surrounding ore of evil, and gently polish the least valuable jewel, with the attrition of circumstance, until all its sparkle is developed. They search out and foster every little, weak, struggling germ of goodness, give it the sunshine of their celestial smiles, and when it droops, as though about to die, pour upon it the refreshing rain of their pitying tears. They look upon a man's virtues as the Heaven-ordered flowers in the garden of his heart, on his faults, as the weeds, sown by an enemy, that must be rooted out with tenderest hands, for fear that some delicate violet of promise may be plucked up with the nightshade beside which it grew.
Should it not be the perpetual aspiration of that man who hopes to associate with angels hereafter, to make this, his preparatory life, approach as nearly as possible to the lives of the wished-for companions of his future? If he would cultivate the angelic within himself (which alone can bring