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THE GREAT SIN

I now come to that part of Christian morals where they differ most sharply from all other morals There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever iuilty themselves I have heard people admit that they are bad-teirls or drink, or even that they are cowards I do not think I have ever heard anyone as not a Christian accuse himself of this vice And at the same time I have very seldohtest mercy to it in others There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves And the more we have it ourselves, theof is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Hu about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there Well, noe have co to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utreed, drunkenness, and all that, are h Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the coerated? If so, think it over I pointed out a o that the more pride one had, the more one disliked pride in others In fact, if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, `How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronise me, or show off ?&039; The point is that each person&039;s pride is in competition with every one else&039;s pride It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I a noise Two of a trade never agree Nohat you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive-is competitive by its very nature-while the other vices are coets no pleasure out of having so more of it than the nextrich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others If every one else beca there would be nothing to be proud about It is the co above the rest Once the eleone That is why I say that Pride is essentially competitive in a way the other vices are not The sexual impulse may drive two irl But that is only by accident; they irls But a proud irl from you, not because he wants her, but just to prove to himself that he is a better man than you Greed o round; but the proud ot et still more just to assert his power Nearly all those evils in the world which people put down to greed or selfishness are really far more the result of Pride

Take it with money: Greed will certainly make a man want money, for the sake of a better house, better holidays, better things to eat and drink But only up to a point What is it that et £20,000 a year? It is not the greed for ive all the luxuries that any man can really enjoy It is Pride-the wish to be richer than some other rich man, and (still more) the wish for power For, of course, power is what Pride really enjoys: there is nothingable to irl spreadadirl is quite often sexually frigid It is Pride What is it that o on and on, deain Pride is cooes on and on If I a as there is one man in the whole world more powerful, or richer, or cleverer than I, he is ht: it is Pride which has been the chief cause of an Other vices ood fellowship and jokes and friendliness a drunken people or unchaste people But pride always means enmity - it is enmity And not only enmity between ainst so which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself Unless you know God as that - and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in co as you are proud you cannot know God A proud s and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see so that is above you

That raises a terrible question How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to theious? I ainary God They theoretically ad in the presence of this phanto how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of iet out of it a pound&039;s worth of Pride towards their fellow when He said that some would preach about Him and cast out devils in His name, only to be told at the end of the world that He had never known them And any of us may at any moment be in this death-trap Luckily, we have a test Whenever we find that our religious life is ood �Cabove all, that we are better than someone else - I think weacted on, not by God, but by the devil The real test of being in presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a set about yourself altogether

It is a terrible thing that the worst of all the vices can sious life But you can see why The, other, and less bad, vices coh our anih our animal nature at all It comes direct from Hell It is purely spiritual: consequently it is far more subtle and deadly For the same reason Pride can often be used to beat down the simpler vices Teachers, in fact, often appeal to a boy&039;s Pride, or, as they call it, his self-respect, to make him behave decently: many ato think that they are beneath his dignity - that is, by Pride The devil laughs He is perfectly content to see you beco chaste and brave and self-controlled provided, all the ti up in you the Dictatorship of Pride-just as he would be quite content to see your chilblains cured if he was allowed, in return, to give you cancer For Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or content this subject I s:

(I) Pleasure in being praised is not Pride The child who is patted on the back for doing a lesson well, the woman whose beauty is praised by her lover, the saved soul to whoht to be For here the pleasure lies not in what you are but in the fact that you have pleased sohtly wanted) to please The trouble begins when you pass fro,, &039;I have pleased hi, &039;What a fine person I ht in yourself and the less you delight in the praise, the worse you are becoht wholly in yourself and do not care about the praise at all, you have reached the bottoh it is the sort of Pride which shows most on the surface, is really the least bad and most pardonable sort The vain person wants praise, applause, ad for it It is a fault, but a child-like and even (in an odd way) a humble fault It shows that you are not yet completely contented with your own adh to want them to look at you You are, in fact, still human The real black, diabolical Pride, comes when you look down on others so much that you do not care what they think of you Of course, it is very right, and often our duty, not to care what people think of us, if we do so for the right reason; namely, because we care so incomparably more what God thinks But the ProudHe says &039;Why should I care for the applause of that rabble as if their opinion orth anything? And even if their opinions were of value, am I the sort of man to blush with pleasure at a coirl at her first dance? No, I arated, adult personality All I have done has been done to satisfy my own ideals - or my artistic conscience - or the traditions of my family - or, in a word, because I&039;m That Kind of Chap If thetopride o, the devil loves &039;curing&039; a sreat one We must try not to be vain, but we must never call in our Pride to cure our vanity

(2) We say in English that a man is &039;proud&039; of his son, or his father, or his school, or regiment, and it may be asked whether &039;pride&039; in this sense is a sin I think it depends on what, exactly, we mean by &039;proud of&039; Very often, in such sentences, the phrase &039;is proud of means &039;has a warm-hearted admiration for&039; Such an adht, perhaps, round of his distinguished father, or because he belongs to a faiment This would, clearly, be a fault; but even then, it would be better than being proud si outside yourself is to take one step away fro as we love and ad more than we love and ad God forbids because He is offended at it, or that Hunity - as if God Hinity The point is, He wants you to know His of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Hi the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which hastoto take off a lot of silly, ugly, fancy-dress in which we have all got ourselves up and are strutting about like the little idiots we are I wish I had got a bit further with humility myself : if I had, I could probably tell youthe fancy-dress off -getting rid of the false self, with all its &039;Look at ood boy?&039; and all its posing and posturing To get even near it, even for a moment, is like a drink of cold water to a ine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call &039;hureasy, s you that, of course, he is nobody Probably all you will think about hient chap who took a real interest in what you said to him If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who see about hu about himself at all

If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step The first step is to realise that one is proud And a biggish step, too At least, nothing whatever can be done before it If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed