The life of those who dwell in the secret place of the Most High may be called a Hidden Life, because the animating principle, the vital or operative element, is not so much in itself as in another. It is a life grafted into another life. It is the life of the soul, incorporated into the life of Christ; and in such a way, that, while it has a distinct vitality, it has so very much in the sense, in which the branch of a tree may be said to have a distinct vitality from the root.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

The Opposites of Humility

It  will help us to ascertain whether we are truly humble, if we inquire whether we are free from the opposites of humility. The opposites of a humble state of mind, (or at least those things which sustain a divergent and antagonist relation,) are impatience, uneasiness, a feeling that something and perhaps much depends on ourselves, undue sensitiveness to the praise and the reproofs of men, and censoriousness. No man should account himself truly humbled, who is the subject of these unhappy states of mind.

Religious Maxims (1846) LXVIII.

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