Vanity of Worldly Pride and Honor
Survey the things that raise your pride; consider how vain they are. Is it silver and gold? The dust of the earth; perishing treasures; poor comforters in an hour of inward distress, of sickness or death! Is it beauty, and youth, and strength? What withering flowers are all these! What gay and dying vanities, that are wasting hourly, and may be blasted with an east wind! Is it honor and fame among men? What an empty thing is the breath of mortals! how subject to change! how unjust and feeble a foundation for pride! It is sometimes given to the worst of men without due merit; and even when it is best merited, and most justly given, it is but a sound that vanishes into empty air. Is it high birth that makes you proud and scornful? This is the honor of your ancestors more than your own, and perhaps it was not raised at first upon virtue or true merit; then it is a worthless thing indeed. Is it your wisdom and knowledge that puffs you up with conceit? It is a sign you want one large branch of it, that is, the knowledge of yourself, for that would make you humble.—Watts.