_To the every-day dispensations of life._ In this world we are the subjects of God's discipline, and that discipline is for the most part mysterious. The course of events with us is often varied. We are subjected to vicissitudes of every kind--vicissitudes of thought, of impression, of feeling, and of experience. We are troubled in life, in heart, in the cultivation of Christian excellence, in the maintenance of life's relationships, in the performance of duty. Whilst we try to bear in mind the glorious issues to which we are destined, we are often perplexed in our endeavours to ascertain how the discipline we are undergoing tends towards their realisation. We are puzzled by the prevalence of wickedness, by the disappointment of hopes, the apparent futility of many of our prayers; and we say, "I am blind, and the way in which I am walking is unknown to me." Humility will help us to think that God has _His own way_ among all these perplexities of ours, though we are unable to trace it. "All things work together for good to them that love God."
God works not as man works, nor sees As man sees, though we mark Ofttimes the moving of His hands Beneath the eternal Dark.
And He who made both life and death, He knoweth which is best. We live to Him, we die to Him, And leave Him all the rest.
Thus the humble are taught trust, patience, resignation, obedience, peace of heart, and daily advancement in sanctification.
_To our bearing towards others._ Humility will qualify us cordially to recognise whatever worth they have, to show gentleness and charity to those among them who are faulty and weak, and thus will take us along a line of conduct which will lead to the strengthening of the bonds of brotherhood. "Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble." The word here rendered "Be clothed" occurs nowhere else in Scripture. It is borrowed from a piece of dress worn by servants when they were doing menial offices, which at once intimated their station, and fitted them for the performance of the duties attached to it. Remember that it is Peter who gives this advice--the Peter who in former days so often brought himself into trouble by his want of humility. Notice, too, the special point he now has in view. He is pleading for harmonious action in the Church, a result which can only be obtained by observing the law of voluntary subordination to established authority--an observance to which the habit of humility will most effectually contribute. Humility is one of the chief social and ecclesiastical virtues, through the medium of which God teaches us what is the attitude we are to maintain towards those who are around us.