'... Be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and
giveth grace to the humble.'--1 Peter v. 5.

The Apostle uses here an expression of a remarkable kind, and which
never occurs again in Scripture. The word rendered in the Authorised
Version 'be clothed,' or better in the Revised Version, 'gird yourselves
with,' really implies a little more than either of those renderings
suggests. It describes a kind of garment as well as the act of putting
it on, and the sort of garment which it describes was a remarkable one.
It was a part of a slave's uniform. Some scholars think that it was a
kind of white apron, or overall, or something of that sort; others think
that it was simply a scarf or girdle; but, at all events, it was a
distinguishing mark of a slave, and he put it on when he meant work.
And, says Peter, 'Do you strap round you the slave's apron, and do it
for the same reason that He did it, to serve.'

So, then, there are three points in my text, and the first is what we
have to wear; second, what we have to wear it for; and, third, why we
should wear it.

I. What we have to wear.

'Gird yourselves with the slave's apron of humility.' Humility does not
consist in being, or pretending to be, blind to one's strong points.
There is no humility in a man denying that he can do certain things if
he can do them, or even refusing to believe he can do them well, if God
has given him special faculties in any given direction. That is not
humility at all. But to know whence all my strength comes, and to know
what a little thing it is, after all; not to estimate myself highly,
and, still further, not to be always insisting upon other people
estimating me highly, and to think a great deal more about their claims
on me than fretfully to insist upon my due modicum of respect and
attention from others, that is the sort of temper that Peter means here.

Now, that temper which may recognise fully any gift that God has given
me, its sweep and degree, but that nevertheless takes a true, because a
lowly, measure of myself, and does not always demand from other people
their regard and assistance, that temper is a thing that we can
cultivate. We can increase it, and we are all bound to try specifically
and directly to do so. Now, I believe that a great part of the feeble
and unprogressive character of so many Christian people amongst us is
due to this, that they do not definitely steady their thoughts and focus
the