46 HUMILITY REPRESENTED IN ST. PAUL. the account ; ' pride spies out those excellencies in us which none else can see, while it conceals and lessens our evil qualities so as to reduce them almost to nothing. By this means the judgment that we form concerning ourselves, is for the most part mistaken and criminal : We hearken to the prejudices of our self-love : we view our virtues through a magnifying glass in the sunshine, and cast our vices into shade and concealment. We carry always about us these false representations of our- selves, this vain picture which is so very unlike the ori- ginal : We speak, and act, and live, according to this bright and great and mistaken idea of 'self, and thereby we plunge ourselves into many errors, iniquities andmis- chiefs. And especially when we happen to compare ourselves with others, our envy arises to assist the work, and offers its wretched and dangerous aid to help on the comparison. We soon spy out all their blemishes and imperfections, and lessen their character in order to exalt our own. Thus while pride on the one side bright- ens and aggrandizes our own image, and on the other side envy detracts from the image of our neighbour, sullies his virtues and darkens his honours, we act our relative parts in the world in a very irregular manner, under the influence of these erroneous sentiments and ideas. The mean opinion of self therefore, that by the pattern of the apostle, I would recommend to my own heart and to all my friends, is this, that in taking ajust estimate of every thing that relates to ourselves or to our fellow- creatures, we should keep a strict watch against the dan- gers of these selfish passions and prejudices ; and we should always make large allowances for those false and glaring colours, wherewith our vanity paints and adorns our own image, and for those deceitful weights which pride is ever flinging into our own scale, to make our virtues appear solid and weighty; and we should make, the same allowances for those dark and disgraceful shades of vice and folly which envy spreads over our neighbours' character, and for those reproaches where- with she loads the opposite scale while we are weighing the virtues of our neighbours, in order to make them seem lighter.
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