That Humility Is the Means to Attain True Peace of Soul, and We Shall Never Arrive at That without It

L EARN of me, because I am meek and humble of heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls (Matt. xi. 29). One of the principal and most efficacious motives that we can allege to encourage ourselves to despise the honor and esteem of the world and aim at being humble is that which Christ our Redeemer proposes to us in these words; namely, that it is the only way to attain inward peace and quiet of soul, a thing so desirable that St. Paul sets it down for one of the fruits of the Holy Ghost (Gal. v. 22). The fruit of the Spirit is peace. Better to understand the peace and quiet of soul that the humble man enjoys, it will be well to see the restlessness and turmoil which the proud man carries in his heart, since contrary is known by contrary. Holy Scripture is full of pronouncements that the wicked enjoy no peace. There is no peace for the wicked, saith the Lord (Isaias xlviii. 22). Peace, peace, and there is no peace (Jerem. vi. 14). Wreckage and unhappiness is in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known (Psalm xiii. 3). They do not know what manner of thing it is to have peace; and though sometimes they have the external appearance of peace, it is not true peace, for there within their heart they have war, the war which their own conscience is ever making on them. Lo, in the midst of peace my bitterness was most bitter (Isaias xxxviii. 17). The wicked ever live in bitterness of heart.

But particularly the proud carry about with them great restlessness and turmoil. The special reason of this we may gather well from St. Augustine, who says that of pride there is born at once envy, as a legitimate daughter, and never but in company with this evil daughter is the evil mother. These two evil companions, he says, pride and envy, make the devil a devil. Thereby it will be understood what work these two evil beings will do in man, seeing that they suffice to make the devil a devil. He who lives on the one hand full of pride and of desires of honor and esteem and sees that things do not turn out according to his plans, and on the other hand lives at the same time full of envy, which is the daughter of pride and her inseparable companion, when he sees others regarded and esteemed and preferred to himself, must clearly be full of gall and bitterness and great turmoil and restlessness, for there is nothing so painful to a proud man, nothing that so much cuts him to the heart, as one of these things.

Holy Scripture paints this to the life in that proud Aman. He was a great favorite with King Assuerus, above all the princes and grandees of the kingdom; he had abundance of riches and temporal goods; he was greatly regarded and made much of by all, so that it looked as though he had nothing more on earth to desire. Yet with all that he was so put out at one single man of low estate, remaining seated at the gates of the palace, taking no notice of him, not doffing his cap nor rising, nor moving from his place when he passed by, that he reckoned nothing of all the fortune that he had in comparison with the pain and trouble that he felt at that annoyance. So’he confessed himself, complaining of it to his friends and to his wife, declaring his prosperity and power: But while I enjoy such great satisfactions, it seems to me that I have nothing, while I see that Jew Mardochai seated at the gates of the palace (Esther v. 13). Hereby is seen the unrest of pride and the waves and storms that arise in the proud man’s heart. The wicked are as a raging sea, that cannot rest (Isaias Ivii. 20). As the sea in its wild fits, so is the heart of the wicked and the proud. Such was the rage that Aman conceived in his heart on this occasion that he thought it a mere nothing to lay hands on this individual; but, knowing that he was a Jew by birth, he obtained patent letters from King Assuerus, providing that all the Jews in his kingdom should die. As for Mardochai, he prepared in his garden a very high gallows to hang him thereon. But his dream turned out quite the other way; for the Jews executed upon their enemies the sentence that had been passed on them; and Aman himself was fastened to the gallows that he had made ready to hang Mardochai.

But before that there had befallen him another sore disappointment. It was this. One morning, when he was plotting his vengeance, he had risen early and betaken himself to the palace to get leave from the king for that purpose. Now it happened that the king had not been able to sleep that night, and bade them bring and read to him the history and chronicle that was written of his times. When they came to the service that Mardochai had rendered the king, discovering to him a treasonable plot that some of his courtiers were hatching against him, he asked: ‘What reward and recompense has been given this man for this so great service and fidelity?’ They answered, “None.” The king said: ‘Who is there? Has anyone come to the palace?” They told him: “Aman is here outside.” ‘Let him then come in.” Aman came in, and he asked: “What will be the right thing to do to a man whom the king desires to honor?” Aman, thinking that he must be the man whom the king desired to honor, answered: ‘The man whom the king desires to honor must be clad in the royal robes and mounted on the king’s own horse, with the royal crown on his head; and one of the chief knights of the court must go before him, leading the horse by the bridle, and proclaiming through the streets: Thus shall be honored the man whom the king desires to honor.” The king said to him: “Go, then, to that Mardochai who is at the gates of the palace and do all that thou hast said, and see that thou failest not on a single point.” See the grief that this sad and proud heart must have felt! However, he could do no less, but executed all the command to the letter. One would think that no greater mortification for him could be imagined; and shortly after it came about that he was hung on the gallows he had prepared for Mardochai. This is the pay that the world is wont to give to its own. And see whence started the pip in the hen, as they say: it was from the other’s not taking off his cap or standing up when the great man passed.

A trifle like this is enough to distress and disturb the proud and keep them in perpetual annoyance and bitterness. So we see today in persons of the world, and the more, the higher their rank. These points make so many punctures to prick and pierce their heart; there is no stroke of a lance that they feel so much. And something of this is never wanting to the proud ones of the world, however much they enjoy favor and hold position; thus they ever carry with them a heart of bitterness more bitter than gall, and live in perpetual restlessness and dissatisfaction. And it will be the same here in religion if a man is proud, for he also will make a grievance of their not reckoning so much of him as of other people, and of their selecting Soand-So for such an appointment and leaving him out in the cold; these and the like complaints will cause him as much disturbance as their points of honor and pretensions cause in worldly people, and haply more. How many have had their vocation imperiled by these things! How many people have been led on thereby to leave their order, on the plea that they could not live in it without being insulted and that they were not well thought of nor properly appreciated there! How many have had their salvation jeopardized in this way! Humility is not only necessary for perfection, but oftentimes for salvation. Unless ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. xviii. 3). Oh, with how much reason used Father Francis Xavier to say: “O opinion, O opinion and esteem of men, what evils hast thou done, art doing, and shalt do!”

Hence will be understood another point of very common experience, that, though it is true that there is such a thing as sickness of melancholy, yet very often a man’s being melancholy and sad does not come of any humor of melancholy or bodily ailment, but of a humor of pride and spiritual infirmity. You are sad and melancholy because you are left out in the cold, thrust into a corner, and no account taken of you. You are sad and melancholy because in the situation whence you thought to come off with honor, you came away without it; or, rather, you fancy it issued in your shame and confusion. The thing did not succeed as you had wished; the sermon did not go off, nor the disputation, nor the academical theses, as you thought it should have done; rather, you fancy you lost your credit and reputation over it, and therefore you are sad and melancholy. When you have to make any of these public displays, the fear of how it is to go, and whether you are to gain honor or lose it, makes you sad and distressed. These are the things that make a proud man sad and melancholy. But the humble of heart, who has no desire of honor and reputation and is content with a low place, is free from all these anxieties and distresses and enjoys profound peace, according to those words of Christ which that holy man (A Kempis) took up: “If anywhere there is peace on earth, the humble of heart possesses it.” Thus were it for no spiritual motive or desire of perfection, but only in our own interest and the keeping of peace and quiet in our heart, for that sole motive we should make it our endeavor to be humble; for this is to live, and the other course is to die a living death.

St. Augustine relates to this purpose an incident in his own life, wherein he says the Lord gave him to understand the blindness and misery in which he then lived. When I was very busy, he says, over a speech which I had to deliver before the emperor, telling his praises, most of which had to be false, and I was praised for it by those who knew them to be false—for such is the vanity and folly of the world—I was under a load of care about the business, very pensive and fanciful as to my prospects of success, quite in a fever of consuming thoughts. Well, it happened that, passing through a street of Milan, I saw a poor beggarman, who had had a meal and some drink besides, playing amusing tricks in high glee. When I saw him, I said to my friends who were there: “How pitiable are our follies! In all our labors (as in those in which we were then taken up), dragging uphill the load of our happiness, wounded with the pricks of a thousand greedy cravings, and adding load to load, we were seeking and arriving at nothing but to gain some assured joy, a thing in which yon poor man is getting the start of us already, and we perchance shall never reach it.” What he had attained by means of some small alms given him, I was seeking with so many labors and mischances; I mean, the joy of earthly felicity. Sooth to say, goes on St. Augustine, that poor man was not in possession of true joy; but the joy that I was seeking with my ambitious efforts was more false than his; and after all he was in mirth, and I in sadness; he felt safe, and I was under a thousand fears and turmoils. And if anyone should ask me which I would rather choose, joy or sadness, I would answer him that I would rather choose joy; and if he asked me again whether I would rather be as that man was or as I was myself, then I would rather choose to be as I was myself, full as I was of troubles and mishaps. And I should have no reason for that preference; otherwise, I ask, what reason had I for it? I should not have preferred myself to that poor man on the score of my knowing more than he did, because, allowing that, it afforded me no satisfaction, but all that I desired with my knowledge was to please men; not to teach them, but simply to gratify them. Beyond doubt, he says, that man was happier than I was, not only because he was merry, and I a prey to cares that gnawed my entrails; but also because he had got his sup of wine by fair means, while I was seeking vainglory by telling lies.