haps sin itself would never have been in the world but for pride. Pride cast down Satan from Heaven, and alas! caused the fall of him who was known as Lucifer, the Son of the Morning, and changed an Archangel, a chief of the Heavenly Hosts, into the chief of fallen spirits. Pride brought sin into the world through Adam, or perhaps rather through Eve. All the Bible through we find the most signal punishments of, and even miracles wrought to punish, pride. Pharaoh is drowned in the Red Sea. Korah, Dathan and Abiram are swallowed up alive in the earth, or consumed by fire. Jezebel is eaten by dogs. Nebuchadnezzar is deprived of his senses like a beast of the field. Even Peter, Prince of the Apostles, falls through pride, and James and John are rebuked.

The great S. Gregory says that "Pride is the root of every sin. Its first-fruits are the deadly sins." "Every other sin," says S. Thomas, "flees from GOD, but pride sets itself against Him, and so especially GOD is said to resist the proud." And S. Augustine also, "Pride is especially

dangerous because it is a sort of snare to us even in our good works." The root of a tree is underground and nourishes; on the contrary, in one sense, is it with pride, instead of affording nourishment it undermines, and alloys, and mars our best works; and yet, on the other hand, it produces an untold number of kindred sins. Ostentation, self-complacency, conceit, vanity, hypocrisy, prejudice, and a thousand others are the secret effects of pride, besides those sins which are its avowed offspring, such as obstinacy, presumption, boastfulness. Indeed we may with much authority assert that nearly every, if not every sin, we can think of, if traced back to its fountain-head, comes from the deadly Sin of Pride. It not only meets us at every turn, but it is terribly universal. It assumes so many forms, from open defying of Almighty GOD, to carefully cloked and concealed spiritual, or so-called religious, or Pharisaical pride. We may openly proclaim it, or we may be perfectly unaware of it; but still we may have gone far towards committing the

deadly sin of pride. It is not necessarily, although very probably, a sin attached to riches, or talents, or exalted position. A beggar may be as proud as the Queen on her throne, or a servant as his master, or one markedly deficient in intellect as another who is most learned and talented.

SIXTEENTH SATURDAY AFTER
TRINITY.

CXIX. On certain safeguards against Pride. S. MATT. xi. 29.- "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart."

LET us think of some safeguards against the deadly sin of Pride. First comes the remembrance of what we are. And what are we? Nay, Holy Scripture has forestalled us with an answer. Surely we are not greater than our father Abraham. "Why is earth and ashes proud?" Secondly, the remembrance of what GOD has done for us. And what was this? What indeed! Who shall dare to say how much, or how often, or how lovingly, and how indulgently? Not only for all

the human race, but for each man, for me," we might each of us say,

even

even

for me." What has GOD done for us? Well says the holy Apostle and Evangelist S. John, at the end of his own, and of the other three Gospels "There are also many other things which JESUS did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written." That is, not only was GOD in the person of JESUS, always at work for our salvation; but we cannot, it is impossible for us to estimate the full value of His most trivial act, bearing in mind Who He was, and what we are, and the object for which it was wrought. The third thing is to have in remembrance

the Mind which was in CHRIST JESUS." Can we be proud when He was not only humble, but descended into the depths of humility? Dare we pride ourselves upon our fine clothing, or even upon our good taste in dress, when GOD condescended to come into the world and to be swaddled in rags, and then in the end to be clothed

only in mockery in " gorgeous array," and then to have even that robe stripped from Him when He hung on the Cross. Can we be proud of our personal appearance, when the Face of GOD was marred by paleness, long fastings, weariness, smiting and spitting, with the blood-drops trickling down It, when there was, as it is written, "no beauty in Him"? Can we be proud of our little, or great (as we imagine them) advantages of money, when the True Riches chose and ennobled a life of poverty? or of our talents, when GOD was jeered at, and derided, and mocked as a fool, and became a laughingstock to the lowest of the Jewish rabble, and the highest of the Jewish people? What, in short, have we to be proud of? Absolutely nothing. What we have to do is, to guard against pride, and in this we may be much assisted by always bearing in mind what we are in the sight of GOD, what GOD has done for us, and what Example He has set us in the Person of our Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST, the "Meek and Lowly of Heart!"