Now, which is more high-minded; which is nobler; which is more fit for a man; to look down, or to look up?  At all events the humble man looks up.  He thinks, ’How much worse, not how much better, am I than other people.’  He looks at their good points, and compares them with his own bad ones.  He admires them for those things in which they surpass him.  He thinks of—­perhaps he loves to read of—­ men superior to himself in goodness, wisdom, courage.  He pleases himself with the example of brave and righteous deeds, even though he fears that he cannot copy them; and so he is always looking up.  His mind is filled with high thoughts, though they be about others, not about himself.  If he be a truly Christian man, his thoughts rise higher still.  He thinks of Christ and of God, and compares his weakness, ignorance, and sinfulness with their perfect power, wisdom, goodness.  Do you not see that this man’s mind is full of higher, nobler thoughts than that of the proud man?  Is he not more high-minded who is looking up, up to God himself, for what is good, noble, heavenly?  Even though it makes him feel small, poor, weak, and sinful in comparison, still his mind is full of grace, and wisdom, and glory.  The proud man, meanwhile, for the sake of feeding his own self-conceit at other men’s expense, is filling his mind with low, mean, earthly thoughts about the weaknesses, sins, and follies, of the world around him.  Is not he truly low-minded, thinking about low things?

Now, I tell you, my friends, that both have their reward.  That the humble man, as years roll on, becomes more and more noble, and the proud man becomes more and more low-minded; and finds that pride goes before a fall in more senses than one.  Yes.  There is nothing more hurtful to our own minds and hearts than a domineering, contemptuous frame of mind.  It may be pleasant to our own self-conceit:  but it is only a sweet poison.  A man lowers his own character by it.  He takes the shape of what he is always looking at; and, if he looks at base and low things, he becomes base and low himself; just as slave-owners, all over the world, and in all time, sooner and later, by living among slaves, learn to copy their own slaves’ vices; and, while they oppress and look down on their fellow-man, become passionate and brutal, false and greedy, like the poor wretches whom they oppress.

Better, better to be of a lowly spirit.  Better to think of those who are nobler than ourselves, even though by so doing we are ashamed of ourselves all day long.  What loftier thoughts can man have?  What higher and purer air can a man’s soul breathe?  Yes, my friends; believe it, and be sure of it.  The truly high-minded man is not the proud man, who tries to get a little pitiful satisfaction from finding his brother men, as he chooses to fancy, a little weaker, a little more ignorant, a little more foolish, a little more ridiculous, than his own weak, ignorant, foolish, and, perhaps, ridiculous self.  Not he; but the man who is always looking upwards to goodness, to good men, and to the all-good God:  filling his soul with the sight of an excellence to which he thinks he can never attain; and saying, with David, ’All my delight is in the saints that dwell in the earth, and in those who excel in virtue.’