Miseries of Self-Importance.
By W. M. Taylor
OBSERVE how self-importance makes a man moody and unhappy. He who is always thinking of his own excellencies renders himself thereby unfit to enjoy the good of others, and is prone to imagine that every token of affection given to another is an insult offered to himself. Hence he is touchy, sensitive, irritable, and envious. He takes offense when none is meant, and even when those around him are not thinking of him at all. He interprets their conduct as if it were studiously discourteous, and goes through the world smarting from wounds which have sprung not so much from neglect of others as from his own overwhelming conceit. There is no surer way to make ourselves miserable than to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. It isolates us from all about us. It cuts us off alike from human sympathy and divine assistance. It makes us very Ishmaels, with our hands against every man and every man's hands apparently against us. It gives a jaundiced hue to the behavior of those who, so far from meaning to do evil to us, have our best interests at heart, and love us with self-sacrificing affection. The man who has a wound about him, no matter where it may be, feels it to be always in his way. Let him do what he will, or go where he may, he cannot move himself but he is conscious of its pain. In like manner, he who has this feeling of self-importance is continually smarting. Somebody has always been slighting him. He is continually complaining of having been insulted, and when honor is given to another, he feels nothing but that he has been overlooked. Thus he shuts himself out from every festival, and mopes most of all when others are merry. May God deliver us from this idolatry of self, on whose altar all true nobleness and real happiness are completely immolated.—Rev. W. M. Taylor.