CHAPTER X.

PRIDE;

OR, THE SCORNER SCORNED.

IN the preceding chapter, we discussed a feminine foible, vanity; at present we propose to consider one more masculine, but not less pernicious, pride. "Proud and haughty scorner is his name, who dealeth in proud wrath," Proverbs 21: 24.

Pride, like vanity, in a measure pervades all hearts; governs most fatally the undevout; and, having, won a scornful mastery over the soul, miserably destroys.

In the first place, let it be remarked, that pride, like vanity, in diversified degrees is found in all hearts. This is a vice which may be divided into as many classes, as there are objects for its gratification. There is a pride of learning, which easily passes over into pedantic vanity. There is a pride of virtue, which is the fruit of self-righteousness, and the most remote from true moral worth. There is a pride of piety, that humbly acknowledges human depravity, and even exaggerates the hue of demerit, while at the same time it thinks well of itself, as having left behind the mass of vulgar sinners. There is a pride of generosity, which opposes "the pew system" as illiberal, while base stinginess is the real motive, and all its bluster about "exclusiveness is got up just to " save the dimes." Besides, there is a pride of genius, originality, money, property; a pride of rank, from the first steward of a third-rate steamer up to the nation's president. The most refined philosopher, like the fantastic harlequin, may be tainted

with this vice. He is proud of being thought incapable of pride, and labors incessantly to exalt his own profession, or to lower the dignity of other men's pursuits. Plato adopted a most magnificent mode of displaying his contempt for magnificence; and Diogenes, still more inflated, discarded commonsense and clean linen, that he might attract more spectators round his tub. Pride is a paradoxical Proteus, eternally diversified, yet ever the same, whether developed in the peasant or prince. He who intentionally exposes uncouth costume at church, is probably a much prouder man than his neighbor who appears decorously attired. The feminine fanatic who greases down her hair in two exact hemispheres on her empty skull, prepares for public worship with the latent conviction that others will think her godly to a wonderful degree, and in her false humility commits vastly more sin than she who tastefully arranges nature's curls. "The worst of madmen is a "Thus," said the cynic, "I trample on the

saint run mad." pride of Plato."

O Diogenes."

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But," rejoined Plato, "with greater pride,

The extent and influence of this sin is well portrayed in the "Course of Time."

Pride, self-adoring pride, was primal cause
Of all sin past, all pain, all wo to come.
Unconquerable pride! first, eldest sin—
Great fountain-head of evil-highest source,
Whence flowed rebellion 'gainst the Omnipotent,
Whence hate of man to man, and all else ill.
Pride at the bottom of the human heart
Lay, and gave root and nourishment to all
That grew above. Great ancestor of vice!
Hate, unbelief, and blasphemy of God;
Envy and slander; malice and revenge;
And murder, and deceit, and every birth
Of damned sort, was progeny of pride.

It was the ever-moving, acting force,
The constant aim, and the most thirsty wish
Of every sinner unrenewed, to be

A god:-in purple or in rags, to have
Himself adored: whatever shape or form
His actions took, whatever phrase he threw
About his thoughts, or mantle o'er his life,
To be the highest, was the inward cause

Of all the purpose of the heart to be
Set up, admired, obeyed. But who would bow
The knee to one who served and was dependent?
Hence man's perpetual struggle, night and day,
To prove he was his own proprietor,
And independent of his God, that what

He had might be esteemed his own, and praised
As such. He labored still, and tried to stand
Alone, unpropped-to be obliged to none;
And in the madness of his pride, he bade
His God farewell, and turned away to be
A god himself; resolving to rely,

Whatever came, upon his own right hand."

Pride differs somewhat from vanity; the former glories in what it possesses, and in everything which, has the character of force. It seeks not mainly for moral excellence, but is most devout at the shrine of power. Vanity, on the contrary, would find a solace in the consideration of other men in the absence of merits it can never discover in itself; it pants for admiration, and would, if possible, create astonishment, but is too indolent to attract spectators by dignified actions, and too degraded to captivate them by any original and enduring charms. Pride gives itself a sort of dignity by emulating the deeds of the great; vanity does no more than borrow a semblance which has not even the substance of a counterfeit. Pride resembles fruit modelled in wax; vanity is like a stupid insect, attached to a beautiful plant where it becomes tinged with the hues which it at the same time destroys. Pride is ambitious to be, vanity is contented only to appear. Pride may stimulate genius, though to pernicious ends; but vanity soon lulls both reason and conscience into portentous repose.

"One at a flash begins and ends in smoke,

Another, out of smoke, brings glorious light."

Pride may sometimes be a useful spring-board to the aspiring soul, but it is much more frequently a destructive stumbling-block. Self is a severe master, the most exacting and the most difficult to satisfy; and he who is most devoted to selfishness is sure to be most chagrined in this life and most miserable in the next.

The vagaries and whimsicalities of the meanly proud are not worthy of dignified notice, but good men of every age have been afflicted with their eccentric demeanor and foolish fashions. President Chauncy, of Harvard College, profoundly versed in the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, theology and physic, slept very little, fasted and prayed enormously, "travelled beyond the boundaries of fourscore," still preaching and lecturing; and, in his sermons, always spoke of the wearing of long hair "with the utmost detestation," representing it as a heathenish practice, and one of the crying sins of the land. John Eliot, the apostle of the Indians, had a similar antipathy. He despised and abhorred the use of wigs and tobacco-he prayed against wigs; preached against them; and ascribed to them most of the evils that afflicted the people. He could not conceive a more heinous sin, than for men "to wear their hair with a luxurious, delicate, feminine prolixity, or to disfigure themselves with hair which was none of their own." Great and good men, at home and abroad, have had their prejudices, pro and con, on this subject. According to Tertullian, shaving our beards is "a lie against our faces," and an impious attempt to improve the works of our Creator. Wigs, alas! have triumphed, and so has shaving; and if Chauncy and Eliot lived in our day, they would discover popular enormities calculated to excite scandal and vexation to the righteous still worse than these. I am not aware that history records any religious crusade against the mustaches, that elegant and del

icate adornment of the semblance of a man, which has recently been defined as being "the upper lip put into mourning for the loss of brains."

It is said that "fine feathers make fine birds." This may be true in ornithology; in theological matters, however, the saying is quite heterodox. But in dealing with popular follies, ridicule is much more potent than reason; and to fret at the vain-glorious is only to increase their presumption and augment their pride. Says Laman Blanchard, "It is an absurd taste, or rather an irrational prejudice, that objects to fine feathers, except as aids to deception, and as substitutes for what they should adorn. It is good to laugh at that worst of vulgarities, which is always dreading to be thought vulgar; and fears to array itself in a graceful and becoming garb, lest its solid qualities should be mistaken for mere glitter. He is a shallow philosopher who is frightened at the thought of being taken for a coxcomb, and dresses meanly to denote the greatness of his mind. The foppery of the beau is to be preferred to the foppery of the sloven. All grand disdain of trifles is a symptom of littleness, and an affected contempt for fair ornament is the most pitiful of affectations.

The "goodly outside" is excellent, when not falsely assumed; but the worst natural face that nature's journeymen ever left unfinished is better than the bravest mask that ever hid it. The sword-sheath of exquisite workmanship-the gilt vellum and the rich leather in which the pages of poetry and philosophy are preserved-may be vanities, but they are never despised except by a vanity infinitely more preposterous. But because they are fair to see, and to be prized in themselves, shall we admit with our forefathers-as by implication we must if we take our text for the rule-that fine scabbards make finely-tempered blades, and that splendid binding makes a precious book!

Look at the crowds of gaudy over-dressed people in the world, who seem to have taken such pains to display, not to