HUMILITY.
[To TUB EDITOR OF THE " SPZCTA.T08.1 SIR,—Your instructive and most true article on humility (Spectator, August 17th, p. 220) seemed to me to need a note on the simple and manly character of that virtue as it appears in the New Testament. It is the humility of Gordon when he writes : "Nothing now really shocks me but myself "; of St. Paul, who, though in one sense a boaster, yet calls himself " chief of sinners," and that in his old age, sincerely feeling that no one had so resisted light and love as he had. Humility in the New Testament, so far as it looks =inward, is, as Maurice says, "not an ornamental virtue of the individual, but a necessary condition of his place in the commonwealth" (of the Church). It is more of an intellectual virtue, appreciating others, yet self as well, and helping a person to get to his proper work, yet get out of the way too. Illingworth regards Christian humility as not primarily concerned with our relation to other men, but with our relation to God. "There is nothing abject in it; it is simply truthfulness. Though it must affect our behaviour to our fellow-men, its social aspect is secondary and subordinate : it is primarily and essentially religious—a true attitude of the individual towards God."—I am, Sir, &c.,
Mather& Vicarage, Malvern. G. W. Porrna.
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