Rev. Asa Mahan, D.D.

Chapter 15

Humility.

"Humility is so frail, so delicate a thing, it is gone if it but looks upon itself; and she who ventures to esteem it here proves by that single thought she has it not." So said Mrs. Fry many years since, and we find the same cited among choice utterances in a paper of high standing in the United States. Such, too, is a very, common sentiment, not only in regard to this but all other forms of genuine Christian virtue. Such virtue, it is thought, exists for all eyes but the possessor, and is of such "a delicate thing" that he cannot look upon it without losing it. We regret to differ totally from such high authorities on so vital a subject. But how, we ask, if this is the true view, must we regard the following inspired utterance of the Psalmist: "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child." "Our rejoicing," says Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, "is this: testimony of our conscience (consciousness) that, in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world." We are not only required in the Scriptures to possess Christian virtue in its genuineness, but to know that we possess it. "Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves." "Let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another." Bear this in mind, reader, that if your supposed Christian virtue is of such a character that you cannot look at it without losing it, or being puffed up with pride, the fact is thereby evinced that such virtue is a counterfeit, and not a genuine coin of heaven. Genuine Christian virtue is so consciously the gift of God that, in its conscious possession, the subject never glorifies himself, but "magnifies the grace of God in himself."