It is a grand thing, no doubt, to be like Elijah, a stern and bold prophet, standing up alone against a tyrant king and a sinful people; but it is even a greater thing to be like that famous martyr in old time, St. Blandina, who, though she was but a slave, and so weakly, and mean, and fearful in body, that her mistress and all her friends feared that she would deny Christ at the very sight of the torments prepared for her, and save herself by sacrificing to the idols, yet endured, day after day, tortures too horrible to speak of, without cry or groan, or any word, save ‘I am a Christian;’ and, having outlived all her fellow-martyrs, died at last victorious over pain and temptation, so that the very heathen who tortured her broke out in admiration of her courage, and confessed that no woman had ever endured so many and so grievous torments.  So may God’s strength be made perfect in woman’s weakness.

You are not called to endure such things.  No:  but you, and I, and every Christian soul are called on to do what we know to be right.  Not to halt between two opinions:  but if God be God, to follow Him.  If we make up our minds to do that, we shall be sure to have our trials:  but we shall be safe, because we are on God’s side, and God on ours.  And if God be with us, what matter if the whole world be against us?  For which is the stronger of the two, the whole world, or God who made it, and rules it, and will rule it for ever?

SERMON XX.  THE LOFTINESS OF HUMILITY

1 Peter v. 5.  Be clothed with humility:  for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.

This is St. Peter’s command.  Are we really inclined to obey it?  For, if we are, there is nothing more easy.  There is no vice so easy to get rid of as pride:  if one wishes.  Nothing so easy as to be humble:  if one wishes.

That may seem a strange saying, considering that self-conceit is the vice of all others to which man is most given; the first sin, and the last sin, and that which is said to be the most difficult to cure.  But what I say is true nevertheless.

Whosoever wishes to get rid of pride may do so.  Whosoever wishes to be humble need not go far to humble himself.

But how?  Simply by being honest with himself, and looking at himself as he is.

Let a man recollect honestly and faithfully his past life; let him recollect his sayings and doings for the past week; even for the past twenty-four hours:  and I will warrant that man that he will recollect something, or, perhaps, many things which will not raise him in his own eyes; something which he had sooner not have said or done; something which, if he is a foolish man, he will try to forget, because it makes him ashamed of himself; something which, if he is a wise man, he will not try to forget, just because it makes him ashamed of himself; and a very good thing for him that he should be so.  I know that it is so for me; and therefore I suppose it is so for every man and woman in this Church.