r thus exposed and its power for evil reduced to
a minimum, it will be comparatively easy to hold in check all other
dependent passions.

CHAPTER IX.
PRIDE.

EXCELLENCE is a quality that raises a man above the common level and
distinguishes him among his fellow-beings. The term is relative. The
quality may exist in any degree or measure. 'Tis only the few that
excel eminently; but anyone may be said to excel who is, ever so
little, superior to others, be they few or many. Three kinds of
advantages go to make up one's excellence. Nature's gifts are talent,
knowledge, health, strength, and beauty; fortune endows us with honor,
wealth, authority; and virtue, piety, honesty are the blessings of
grace. To the possession of one or several of these advantages
excellence is attached.

All good is made to be loved. All gifts directly or indirectly from God
are good, and if excellence is the fruit of these gifts, it is lawful,
reasonable, human to love it and them. But measure is to be observed in
all things. Virtue is righteously equidistant, while vice goes to
extremes. It is not, therefore, attachment and affection for this
excellence, but inordinate, unreasonable love that is damnable, and
constitutes the vice of pride.

God alone is excellent and all greatness is from Him alone. And those
who are born great, who acquire greatness, or who have greatness thrust
upon them, alike owe their superiority to Him. Nor are these advantages
and this preeminence due to our merits and deserts. Everything that
comes to us from God is purely gratuitous on His part, and undeserved
on ours. Since our very existence is the effect of a free act of His
will, why should not, for a greater reason, all that is accidental to
that existence be dependent on His free choice? Finally, nothing of all
this is ours or ever can become ours. Our qualities are a pure loan
confided to our care for a good and useful purpose, and will be
reclaimed with interest.

Since the malice of our pride consists in the measure of affection we
bestow upon our excellence, if we love it to the extent of adjudging it
not a gift of God, but the fruit of our own better selves; or if we
look upon it as the result of our worth, that is, due to our merits, we
are guilty of nothing short of downright heresy, because we hold two
doctrines contrary to faith. "What hast thou, that thou hast not
received?" If a gift is due to us, it is no longer a gift. This extreme
of prid