In view of these reflections, we can understand the stress laid by the inspired writers on the grace of humility.  We are exhorted to be like Jesus, who was meek and lowly in heart; and we are commanded to esteem others better than ourselves.  These admonitions are not designed to cultivate a servile or an abject spirit, but to promote a wholesome sense of our own limitations, weaknesses and dependence.  They would foster such a state of mind as will receive instruction, as will lean on the Almighty, and recognize the worthiness and rights of all.  Just as the flower has to pass its season entombed in the darkness of its calyx before it spreads forth its radiant colors and breathes its perfume, so the soul must veil itself in the consciousness of its own ignorance and sinfulness before it will be able to expand in true greatness, or shed around it the aroma of pure goodness.  Crossing the prairies recently between this city and St. Louis, I noticed that the trees were nearly all bowed in the direction of the northeast.  As our strongest winds blow from that quarter, it was natural to inquire why they were not bent to the southwest.  The explanation given was, that the south winds prevail in the time of sap, when the trees are supple with life and heavy with foliage, and consequently, that they yield before them.  But when the winter comes they are hard and firm, rigid and stiff, and even the fury of the tempest affects them not.  Thus is it with human souls.  When humility fills the heart, when its gentleness renders susceptible its thoughts and feelings, the softest breath of God’s Spirit can bend it earthward to help the needy, and downward to supplicate and welcome heaven’s grace.  But when it is frozen through and through with pride, it coldly resists the overtures of mercy, and in its deadness is apathetic even, to the storm of wrath.  Nothing remains but for the wild hurricane to uproot it and level it to the ground.  Such is the moral of my brief discourse.  God grant we may have the wisdom of humility to receive it!

KNOX LITTLE

THIRST SATISFIED

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

William John Knox Little, English preacher, was born 1839 and educated at Cambridge University.  He has filled many parochial cures, and in 1881 was appointed canon of Worcester, and sub-dean in 1902.  He also holds the vicarage of Hoar Cross (1885).  He is of high repute as a preacher and is in much request all over England.  He belongs to the High Church school and has printed, besides his sermons, many works of educational character, such as the “Treasury of Meditation,” “Manual of Devotion for Lent,” and “Confirmation and Holy Communion.”

KNOX LITTLE

BORN IN 1839

THIRST SATISFIED[1]

[Footnote 1:  Reprinted by permission of Hodder & Stoughton, London.]