eeds rough dress; and the only garb in which
we shall be able to do the deeds of self-sacrifice that are needed in
order to help our brethren is humility, the preparation for all service.

But, further, service is the test of humility. Plenty of people will
say, 'I know that I have nothing to boast of,' and so forth; but they
never do any work. And there is a still more spurious kind of humility,
that of a great many professing Christians (I wonder of how many of us)
who, when we ask them for any kind of Christian service, say, 'I do not
feel myself at all competent. I am sure I could not take a class in the
Sunday School. I do not feel sufficiently master of the subject. I
cannot talk. I have no facilities for influencing other people,' and so
on. Too many of us are very humble when there is anything to be done,
and never at any other time as far as anybody can see; and that sort of
humility the Apostle does not commend. It is unfortunately very frequent
amongst professing Christians. Christian humility is not particular
about the sort of work it does for Jesus. Never mind whether you are on
the quarter-deck, with gold lace on your coat and epaulettes on your
shoulders as an officer, or whether you are a cabin-boy doing the
humblest duties, or a stoker working away down fifty feet below
daylight. As long as the work is done for the great Admiral, that is
enough; and whoever does any work for Him will never want for a reward.
There are some of us who like to be officers, but do not like carrying a
musket in the ranks. Humility is the preparation for service, and
service is the test of humility.

III. Lastly, why we should wear this girdle.

There is one reason given in my text, which Peter quotes from the Old
Testament. 'God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.'
That is often true even in regard to outward life. Providence and man
often seem to be in league together to lift up the lowly ones and thwart
the proud. If a man walks with his head very high, in this low-roofed
world, he is pretty sure to get it knocked against the rafters before he
has done. But it is the spiritual region that the Apostle is thinking
about, in which the one condition of receiving God's grace is a lowly
sense of my own character and nature, which is conscious of sin and
weakness, and waits before Him. And the one condition of not receiving
any of that grace is to keep a stiff upper lip and a high head. If I
think that I am ri