such little prayer as that of Fenelon's: "Lord, take my
heart, for I cannot give it Thee; and when Thou hast it, keep it, for I
cannot keep it for Thee; and save me in spite of my sins."

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Many a sinner has followed some such simple, child-like method, and
God's response has come into his heart with a thrill of awakening love
that has startled it with its sweetness and power, and filled him with
a keen sense of personal dishonour at ever again wounding the heart of
Jesus by parleying even for a moment with the tempter.

III. _The Lesson of Humility_

The greatest of all lessons the Holy Ghost teaches us is that of
humility. Thomas a Kempis shows that one of the special points of
profit in temptation lies in the fact that in it "a man is humbled."[9]

The most necessary virtue the Christian soul must learn is that of
humility. When our Lord would give His disciples the chief reason why
they should learn of Him, He said it was because, "I am meek and lowly
in heart."[10]

It was a common expression of the Fathers of the Church that humility
is the mother and mistress of all virtues, and they loved to see in the
etymology of the word (_humus_, earth), the suggestion of the soil
under our feet, in which, though often unpleasant and repulsive, all
fair flowers and fruits have their root and draw their sustenance.

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We have only to consider pride, the vice which is the contrary of
humility, to understand what is meant by the statement that without
humility no other virtue can exist.

The first of the great virtues, Faith, can certainly not exist along
with pride, for it is of the essence of pride to make for
self-confidence, as opposed to trust in God or in anyone else besides
one's self.

Hope cannot exist, for the true God-ward Hope which constitutes this
virtue has in it an element of meekness and patient waiting on God that
is incompatible with the presence of pride.

Nor can Love and pride exist in the same heart, for love is necessarily
unselfish, and the proud soul is essentially bound up in self.

How then are we to obtain this so necessary virtue of humility? St.
Bernard gives us the answer, an answer by no means original with him,
however, but which has been the burden of the spiritual masters of
every age of the Church. "_Humility is nurtured only by
humiliations_." The soul that constantly rejects that which humiliates
can never acquire the virtue of humility, for it is delibera