t upon you yet another descending stair. Look back at the way
you came up. But take care lest the sight turns you dizzy. Look at any
spot you once crossed on your way up, and, lo! every foot-print of yours
has become a descending step. You sink down as you look, broken down
with shame and with horror and with remorse. There are people, some
still left in this world, and some gone to the other world, people whom
you dare not think of lest you should turn sick and lose hold and hope.
There are places you dare not visit: there are scenes you dare not
recall. Lucifer himself would be a humble angel with his wings over his
face if he had a past like yours, and would often enough return to look
at it. And, then, not the past only, but at this present moment there
are people and things placed close beside you, and kept close beside you,
and you close beside them, on divine purpose just to give you continual
occasion and offered opportunity to practise humility. They are kept
close beside you just on purpose to humiliate you, to cut out your
descending steps, to lend you their hand, and to say to you: Keep near
us. Only keep your eye on us, and we will see you down! And then, if
you are resolute enough to look within, if you are able to keep your eye
on what goes on in your own heart like heart--beats, then, already, I
know where you are. You are under all men's feet. You are ashamed to
lift up your eyes to meet other men's eyes. You dare not take their
honest hands. You could tell Edwards himself things about humiliation
now that would make his terribly searching and humbling book quite tame
and tasteless.

Come, then, O high-minded man, be sane, be wise. If you were up on a
giddy height, and began to see that certain death was straight and soon
before you, what would you do? You know what you would do. You would
look with all your eyes for such steps as would take you safest down to
the solid ground. You would welcome any hand stretched out to help you.
You would be most attentive and most obedient and most thankful to any
one who would assure you that this is the right way down. And you would
keep on saying to yourself--Once I were well down, no man shall see me up
here again. Well, my brethren, humiliation, humility, is to be learned
just in the same way, and it is to be learned in no other way. He who
would be down must just come down. That is all. A step down, and
another step down, and another, and