PRIDE vs. DECENCY

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 10, 1859

PRIDE vs. DECENCY.

THERE are extremes in everything. One by the ridiculous lengths and disgusting foppery of pride, may render himself offensive both to God and all christian men. Another may place himself so far upon the opposite extreme as to border on filth and squalor, and thus become no less offensive. We can hardly consider it a virtue, if, in our endeavors to avoid the first extreme, we get upon the latter. We have heard of its being charged against some Sabbath-keepers that they had not pride enough to be decent. We fear that in some instances, and in the common acceptation of the term, this charge is too true.

To that form of expression however, we take some exception. We cannot speak of a person's not being proud enough to be decent; for no pride is involved in decency. A person may in all points manifest the most scrupulous decency, and yet from the sin of pride be free as an angel. Pride is in the most unmeasured terms condemned in the word of God; and those who harbor it are held up as objects of God's hatred here, and doomed to devouring fire hereafter; but decency is a duty everywhere enjoined upon us, as a duty which we owe to those around us, and to God. Mark God's dealings with his ancient people, and see with what strictness this was enjoined upon them. Let all things, says Paul, be done decently and in order. If this is a good principle in the regulation of churches, it is no less so for families and for individuals; and it applies no less to a condition than an act. It is no less our duty to be decent than to act decently. Away then with the false idea that a man must be dirty in order not to be proud. Neatness and decency every one can and should maintain, in their dwellings, in their person, in their dress, in their speech, in everything. Let none then be proud, but let all be decent.