House Beautiful by Charlotte Maria Tucker

BROKEN; alas! Shivered and broken! The gift of the Most High-the tables inscribed with the Law which was uttered in the thunders of Sinai, with the commandments which Israel had thrice vowed to keep-all broken through the baseness of man!

But man is not willing to own this. He has gathered the broken fragments together, as the shivered pieces of a precious ancient vase were once gathered, and has placed them together, fitting bit to bit, and has fastened them firmly, as he deems, with the cement of his own self-righteousness. He believes that there are few particles missing. Perhaps, indeed, he has not kept the Fourth Commandment in all its integrity; perhaps some fragments are wanting in the Tenth; but still, on the whole, he believes that he can present fair, almost faultless, tables, on which God will look with approval, and fellow-creatures with applause. When the Pharisee's eye rested on the tables of the Commandments-that proud eye detected no flaw-he cried, "God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men! " When the young ruler was questioned by the Lord, he, too, marked no breach in the heaven-given Law: "all these things have I kept from my youth up," was the complacent answer of a conscience at rest.