Influence

In this piece by Martin Tupper, he warns us that when we judge, although at times rightly, of another person: we rarely understand the person's influences and only God knows, like the hairs on our heads, all the many circumstances that make them who they are and why.

  "Sometimes at a glance thou judgest well; and years could add little to thy knowledge.

But often, by shrewd scrutiny, thou judgest to the good man's harm;

For it may be his hour of trial, or he slumbereth at this post,

Or he hath slain his foe, but not yet leveled the stronghold,

Or barely recovered of the wounds, that fleshed him in his fray with passion.

There may be deeper things than these, lying in the twilight of truth;

couldst thou read the history of character the chequred story of life,

Wert to add the forces from without, dragging him this way and that,

And the secret qualities within, grafted on the soul from the womb,

And the might of other men's example, among whom his lot is cast,

And the influence of want, or wealth, of kindness or harsh ill-usage,

Of ignorance he cannot help, and knowledge found for him by others,

And inheritance of likeness from a father, and natural human frailty,

And the habit of health or disease, and prejudices poured into his mind, and the myriad little matters none but God can know,

if thou couldst compass all these, and the consequents flowing from them, and the scope to which they tend, and the necessary fitness of all things, then shouldst thou see as God seeth, who judgeth all men equal."