These ought ye to have done
Spurious holiness
Rabbi Shammai, the narrow-minded rival of Hillel, was so scrupulous that he nearly starved his little son on the Day of Atonement, and made a sort of booth of his daughter-in-law’s bed that his little grandson, just born, might keep the Feast of Tabernacles.
Yet we are told that he was a luxurious and selfish man. It is easier to tithe mint than to live a holy life. (Canon Farrar.)
Neglecting the most important thing
A great French doctor was taking an English one round the wards of his hospital, all sorts of miseries going on before them, some dying, others longing for death-all ill. The Frenchman was wonderfully eloquent about all their diseases; you would have thought he saw through them, and knew all their secret wheels, like looking into a watch or into a glass bee-hive. He told his English friend what would be seen in such a case when the body was opened! He spent some time in this sort of work, and was coming out, full of glee, when the other doctor said, “But, Dr you haven’t prescribed for these cases.” “Oh, neither I have!” said he, with a grumph and a shrug; “I quite forgot that”; that being the one thing why these poor people were there, and why he was there too. (John Brown, M. D.)
Pardon desired for duties left undone
Dr. Samuel Johnson, in writing to his mother, says:--“You have been the best mother, and I believe the best woman, in the world. I thank you for your indulgence to me, and I beg forgiveness for all I have done ill, and all that I have omitted to do well.” So in the prayer he composed at the same time: “Forgive me whatever I have done unkindly to my mother, and whatever I have omitted to do kindly.”