I am not going to give any examples.  I am not going to say,—­ ’Suppose you thought this and this about yourself, and were proud of it; and then suppose that you recollected that you had done that and that:  would you not feel very much taken down in your own conceit?’

I like that personal kind of preaching less and less.  Those random shots are dangerous and cruel; likely to hit the wrong person, and hurt their feelings unnecessarily.  It is very easy to say a hard thing:  but not so easy to say it to the right person and at the right time.

No.  The heart knoweth its own bitterness.  Almost every one has something to be ashamed of, more or less, which no one but himself and God knows of; and which, perhaps, it is better that no one but he and God should know.

I do not mean any great sin, or great shame—­God forbid; but some weak point, as we call it.  Something which he had better not say or do; and yet which he is in the habit of saying and doing.  I do not ask what it is.  With some it may be a mere pardonable weakness; with others it may be a very serious and dangerous fault.  All I ask now is, that each and every one of us should try and find it out, and feel it, and keep it in mind; that we may be of a humble spirit with the lowly, which is better than dividing the spoil with the proud.

But why better?

The world and human nature look up to the proud successful man.  One is apt to say, ’Happy is the man who has plenty to be proud of.  Happy is the man who can divide the spoil of this world with the successful of this world.  Happy is the man who can look down on his fellow-men, and stand over them, and manage them, and make use of them, and get his profit out of them.’

But that is a mistake.  That is the high-mindedness which goes before a fall, which comes not from above, but is always earthly, often sensual, and sometimes devilish.  The true and safe high-mindedness, which comes from above, is none other than humility.  For, if you will look at it aright, the humble man is really more high-minded than the proud man.  Think.  Suppose two men equal in understanding, in rank, in wealth, in what else you like, one of them proud, the other humble.  The proud man thinks—­’How much better, wiser, richer, more highly born, more religious, more orthodox, am I than other people round me.’  Not, of course, than all round him, but than those whom he thinks beneath him.  Therefore he is always comparing himself with those below himself; always watching those things in them in which he thinks them worse, meaner than himself; he is always looking down on his neighbours.