The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-12-04

of men are, after all but two forms of The same Yirtue-voluntary servitude. If you are not obeyed, it is generally because you have not yourself obeyed first.
 The secret of moral ascendency rests with those who rule with simplicity. They soften by the spirit the harshness of the fact. Their authority is not in shoulder straps, titles or disciplinary measures. They make use of neither ferule nor threats, yet they achieve eV- erythtng. Why7 Because we feel that they are themselves ready for every thing. That which confers upon a man the right to demand of another the sac rff1ce of his time, his money, his pas sions. even his life. is not only that he is resolved upon all these sacrifices himself, but that he has made them in advance. Tn the command of man animated by this spirit of renunciation there is a mysterious force which com municates itself to him who is to obey and helps him do his duty.
 In all the provinces of human activi- ty there are chiefs who inspire strengthen, magnetize their soldiers; under their direction the troops do prodigies. With them one feels himself capable of any effort, ready to go through fire, as the saying has it, and if he goes it is with enthusiasm.
 But the pride of the exalted is not the only pride; there is also the pride of the humble-this arrogance of under lings, fit pendant to that of the great The root of these two brides is the same. It is not alone that lofty and imperious being. the man who says, T am the law" that provokes insur- rection by his very attitude; it is also that pigheaded subaltern who will not admit that there is anything beyond his knowledge.
 There are really many people who find all superiority irritating. For them every piece of advice is an offense, ev- cry criticism an imposition, every order an outrage on their liberty. They would not know how to submit to rule. To respect anything or anybody would seem to them mental alteration. They say to people after their fashion, 'BeyoDd us there is nothing"
 To the family of the proud belong also those difficult and representative peo- pie who in humble life find that their superiors never do them fitting honor, whom the best and most kindly do not succeed in satisfying and who go about their duties with the air of a martyr. At bottom these disaffected minds have too much misplaced self respect. They do not know how to fill their place sim ply, but complicate their life and that of others by unreasonable demands and morbid suspicious.
 When one takes the trouble to study men at short range he Is surprised to find that pride has so many lurking l places among those who are by com mon consent called the humble So powerful is this vice that 1t arrives at forming round those who live in the most modest circumstances a wall which isolates them from their neigh bors. There they are intrenched, bar ricaded with their ambitions and their contempts, as inaccessible as the pow erful of earth behind their aristocratic prejudices. Obscure or illustrious, pride wraps itself in its dark royalty of enmity to the human race. It is the same in misery and in high places solitary and impotent, on guard against everybody, embroiling everything. And the last word about it is always this: If there is so much hostility and ha- tired between different classes of men it is due less to exterior conditions than to an interior fatality. Conflicting in- terests and differences of situation dig ditches between us, it is true, but pride transforms the ditches into gulfs, and in reality it is pride alone which cries from brink to brink, There is nothing in common between you and us!' We have not finished with pride, but it is impossible to picture 1t under all it's forms. feel most resentful against it when it meddles with knowledge and appropr1ates that. We owe our knowl- edge to our fellows, as we do our riches and power. It is social force which ought to be of service to everybody, and it can only be so when those who know remain sympathetically near to those who know not. When knowl- edge is turned into tool for ambition it destroys itself.
 And what shall we say of the pride of good men? For it exists and makes even virtue hateful. The just who re- pent them of the evil others do remain in brotherhood and social rectitude. But the just who despise others for their faults and misdeeds cut them selves off from humanity, and their goodness. descended to the rank of an ornament for their vanity, becomes like those riches which kindness does not inform, like authority untempered by the spirit of obedience. Like proud wealth and arrogant power, super cilious virtue also is detestable It fosters in man traits and an attitude provocative of I know not what. The sight of it repels instead of attracting, and those whom it deigns to distin- guish with its benefits feel as though they had been slapped in the face.
 To resume and conclude, 1t Is an error to think that our advantages, what ever they are, should be put to the service of our vanity Each of them constitutes for him who enjoys it an obligation and not a reason for vain glory. Material wealth. power, knowl- edge, gifts of the heart and mind, be- come so much cause for discord when they serve to nourish pride. They re- poofp ba,, of oonf only So long AS they