Epistle.
1 Corinthians xii. 2-11.

Brethren:
You know that when you were heathens, you went to dumb idols, according as you were led. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man, speaking by the Spirit of God, saith Anathema to Jesus. And no man can say, The Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit: and there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but the same God, who worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man unto profit. To one, indeed, by the Spirit, is given the word of wisdom: to another, the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit: to another, faith in the same Spirit; to another, the grace of healing in one Spirit: to another, the working of miracles: to another, prophecy: to another, the discerning of spirits: to another, divers kinds of tongues: to another, interpretation of speeches: but all these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as he will.

Gospel.
St. Luke xviii. 9-14.

At that time:
To some who trusted in themselves as just, and despised others, Jesus spoke this parable: Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee, standing, prayed thus with himself: O God! I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, nor such as this publican. I fast twice in the week: I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven; but struck his breast, saying: O God! be merciful to me a sinner! I say to you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; because every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled: and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

Sermon CVI.

Two men went up into the temple to pray:
the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
—St. Luke xviii, 10.

There are not supposed to be any Pharisees nowadays, and the word "publican" is getting rather old-fashioned; so perhaps, before applying this parable to our own times, we had better understand who the Pharisees and the publicans were.

The Pharisees, in our Lord's time, were a very religious class among the Jews, very strict and correct in their belief, and with very strict consciences, too—strict, at least, about some things, particularly about such things as concerned their reputation for piety. About other matters they were sometimes rather too easy and charitable—easy and charitable, that is, to themselves; for it is quite possible that they might have criticised others for faults not very different from their own, as when this Pharisee in the Gospel called the poor publican standing in the corner an extortioner, or robber, as perhaps the word is better rendered; forgetting, it may be, some little transactions which, if rightly understood, might have fixed as bad a name on himself.

These publicans, on the other hand, were not in any way a religious set of people; they did not pretend, like the Pharisees, to be so, nor were they in point of fact. They were called publicans because they collected the public taxes; they were blamed by the people, and with good reason, for extorting money unjustly from the poor. Their business was really, in those times, a proximate occasion of sin; this was the reason why St. Matthew, who was a publican before our Lord called him to be an apostle, never went back to his business again, as St. Peter did to his innocent occupation as a fisherman. The publican of this parable also, no doubt, had either made up his mind to give up his sinful life or was endeavoring to do so.

Both of these men, the Pharisee and the publican, were sinners. In that they were alike; the difference between them was that the publican acknowledged that he was a sinner and was trying to amend his life, while the Pharisee thought that he was perfect, or that, if he had any faults, they were such as no one could avoid, and which his Maker would readily overlook, especially in a person of his exalted piety.

Now, I said in the beginning that there were not supposed to be any Pharisees nowadays: but I think that we shall find that there are some people of this kind, even among us Christians; and perhaps, if we go down very deep into our own consciences, we shall even find that we are Pharisees ourselves.

Some of these Pharisees make excellent confessions. They show a care in their examination of conscience equal to that of the saints; they have the most accurate knowledge of every fault, and are willing to go into every detail, if they are permitted to do so. This delicacy of perception of sin is a quality which certainly commands our admiration; but there is a circumstance which prevents this admiration from being quite unlimited. This circumstance is that the faults which they are so keenly alive to are not their own. They are those of other people with whom they live, or of whom they hear through some person of the same sort of sensitive conscience that they themselves have.

The world, in the eyes of these sensitive people, certainly has a melancholy aspect. Everybody is doing wrong, and nobody is doing right—nobody, that is, except themselves. They, thank God! are not so bad. They are innocent sufferers, enduring a continual martyrdom at the hands of these wicked people who live in the same house or close by. Their only consolation here below is to tell their friends how much they suffer, and how much others suffer, from these sinners. Others, it is true, may deserve it, but they themselves certainly never have. They wish that they were dead and out of reach of their persecutors. The most curious thing is that one of their great causes of annoyance is the way that other people will carry stories; this is the story that they spend their lives in carrying.

Perhaps you think this picture is overdrawn. I hope it is. And I do not believe that many people are such thorough Pharisees as these whom I have described. But there is too much, a great deal too much, of the Pharisaic spirit about us all.

And not nearly enough of the spirit of the publican—of humility, contrition, and purpose of amendment. How shall we acquire this spirit By looking into our own conscience, unpleasant as it may be, and letting those of our neighbors alone. If we sincerely examine our own hearts we shall not thank God that we are not like others, but rather pray to him that we may, before we die, have something like the perfection that many others have already reached; and ask him, as the publican did, to have mercy on us sinners—on us poor sinners, who are trying to be so no more.

That is the way, and the only way, that we sinners can get into the company of the saints; not by fancying ourselves there already. If we wish, then, to reach that blessed company, let us start on this way at once, for there is no time to lose.

Sermon CVII.

Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled;
and he that humbleth himself shall be exulted.
—St. Luke xviii. 14.

One does not need to be a Christian, my dear brethren, to understand, as it would seem, the truth of these words of our Lord. Everybody knows that a man who is all the time praising himself, or who even shows that he has a pretty good opinion of himself, loses by it in the opinion of others. He does not even get as much credit for ability or virtue as he really deserves, besides being considered as stuck up and conceited, which everybody feels to be a defect. In fact, a man who is evidently very proud makes himself ridiculous.

And, on the other hand, one who is modest and unassuming generally is supposed to be more clever than he really is. People sometimes get a reputation for learning and depth of thought by simply holding their tongue—so convinced is the world that a really great man will not make a parade of his greatness.

But this lesson of worldly prudence is not the real meaning of our Saviour's words. He does not wish to show us how to get a reputation for learning or for anything else. This would be merely encouraging and helping our vanity and pride. What he wishes to teach us is humility. He wants us to humble ourselves really; not to pretend to do so, that we may be more esteemed by the world.

Why, then, if that is the object, does he promise us that if we humble ourselves we shall be exalted? That, it would seem, could be no inducement to a man who had real humility. Such a man would not want to be exalted, you will say. Ah! there is where you are mistaken. Every humble man, every really good man, does want to be exalted. The saints, who are the models of humility for us, wanted it more than any one else in the world.

This may sound strange, but it is undoubtedly true. For what is it to be exalted in the true sense of the word?

It is to get near to God, who is the Most High. And the more one loves God the more does he wish to be near him; so all those who love God wish to be thus exalted and the saints more than all, because they love God more than any one else.

And this exaltation, which comes from being near to Almighty God, is what he promises, in these words of the Gospel, to the humble and refuses to the proud. This was what he gave to the publican and refused to the Pharisee; for he gave the publican his grace and his friendship, but the Pharisee failed to receive it on account of his pride. "This man," says our Lord, "went down to his house justified rather than the other"—that is, nearer to God, and therefore more exalted.

The humble, then, will be raised into the friendship of God, and the proud will not. Nor can they come near him in any other way. He is too high above us for us to come near him except on his own terms. You cannot get near Almighty God by making the most of your natural powers, any more than you can get near the stars by going on the roof of your house. Some people in old times thought to scale the heavens by building a high tower; but God confounded their pride, and the tower of Babel is a byword for human folly and presumption to this day.

Let us, then, my dear brethren, not follow their example. Let us seek truly to be exalted, but in the way that he has appointed, in the way that his saints have chosen, and especially the way of Our Blessed Lady, the nearest to him and the humblest of all. And, in fact, if we really wish for this true exaltation it must needs be in this way; for if we really wish to be near God it must be for the love of him; and if we love him we must often think of him; and if we often think of him we must be humble; for how can the creature be proud who often thinks of the Creator of heaven and earth?

Sermon CVIII.

Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled;
and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
—St. Luke xviii. 14.

It is a blessed and a happy moment, a sort of turning-point in life, my brethren, for any one of us when he wakes up to the conviction that he is nothing extraordinary after all. That is, if there is such a moment; for sometimes this conviction dawns on one gradually.

Almost every one begins life with the other idea. Not that he has it himself at the start, but his friends have it for him. Almost every baby is considered, as you know, to be the finest and most beautiful one that ever was seen. Perhaps he does not quite come up afterward to the expectations of his fond parents; but at least he is remarkable in some way. He is a very clever boy, or a very good boy, or, at any rate, he could be if he wanted to; he has got it in him; he is much finer in some respects, perhaps in a great many, than the common run. He is going to turn out a great man; he is much more likely to be President of the United States than any other boy of his age.

And by the time he has got to man's estate he has a good deal of the same opinion himself. He does not like to have it even hinted that he is at all below par in anything; or if it is plain, even to himself, that he is, then it is a thing of no consequence, or he could excel in it if he chose to. The sorest points are of course those in which his choosing would make no difference. The less said about these the better.

Well, you know all this is what we call pride. Almighty God has mercifully arranged it so that it is generally knocked out of us to some extent as we travel on through the world; but still a good deal of it remains.

It is a thing that gives us a great deal of trouble of mind, and which generally keeps us back a great deal from really excelling in anything. It is a thing, therefore, which it is good to get rid of as soon as we can; and of course, therefore, you all want to know how to do this. I think the Gospel story of to-day throws some light on this point.

The way to do it is the way of the publican, and the way not to do it is that of the Pharisee. And the way of the publican is that of common sense, too.

What is it? It is lo look at and consider our defects, and not our strong points. The publican might have talked like the Pharisee, too. He might have said: "I am a much better fellow than that old Pharisee. I am a good, hearty, generous soul. I treat my friends to the best I have got; and if I do cheat sometimes a little in business I make up for it in charity; and I don't make a show of the good I do and put on a pretence of religion like those canting hypocrites."

And so he might have gone on to the end of the chapter. But he didn't. No; he just went off in a corner all by himself and said: "O God! be merciful to me a sinner." He did not think about his virtues, but about his sins; and when he asked the Lord to be merciful to him he meant that he wanted to amend his life, and was going to do it with the help of God, and imitate the Pharisee, whom he really thought better than himself; for you see he did not think of the sins of the Pharisee, but of his virtues.

I say that his way was of common sense. It is the way we all follow when at work on anything except ourselves. We look at the defects in our work, and not its excellences; and if we have very good sense it seems to us pretty much all defects.

Humility, then, after all, is only common sense. And I think you ought to see pretty well one reason at least why, as our Lord says, he that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself exalted. The one who exalts himself, who stops to look at his virtues, is all the time running down, and losing even the little virtue that he admires; while he that really humbles himself is constantly getting better. So humility is necessary for progress. It is so in the things of this world even, and much more so in our spiritual affairs.