Proverbs 11:2
When pride comes, then comes disgrace,
but with humility comes wisdom.
Proverbs 16:5
The Lord detests all
the proud of heart. Be sure of this:
They will not go unpunished.
Proverbs 16:18
Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall.
I
now come to that part of Christian morals where they differ most sharply from
all other morals. There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which
every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which
hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty
themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad— tempered, or that they
cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they arc cowards. I
do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of
this vice. And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone, who was not a
Christian, who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault
which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of
in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in
others.
The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self—Conceit: and the
virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may
remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the
centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the
centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil,
is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere
fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil:
Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
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