Music
Should You Feel Inclined to Censure


235

Should You Feel Inclined to Censure

Thoughtfully

1. Should you feel inclined to censure

Faults you may in others view,

Ask your own heart, ere you venture,

If you have not failings, too.

Let not friendly vows be broken;

Rather strive a friend to gain.

Many words in anger spoken

Find their passage home again.

2. Do not, then, in idle pleasure

Trifle with a brother’s fame;

Guard it as a valued treasure,

Sacred as your own good name.

Do not form opinions blindly;

Hastiness to trouble tends;

Those of whom we thought unkindly

Oft become our warmest friends.

Text: Anon., ca. 1863

Music: Philip Paul Bliss, 1838–1876

Matthew 7:1–2

Doctrine and Covenants 88:124