A Common Fault—Justifying Oneself

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Who among us relishes being told his or her faults? Self-justification is generally our spontaneous reaction. Yet Pascal advises otherwise: “When people detect in us what are actually imperfections and faults, it is clear that they do us no wrong, since it is not they who caused them; and it is clear, too, that they do us a service, inasmuch as they help us to free ourselves from an evil, namely, the ignorance of these defects. We should not be angry because they know them and despise us; for it is right that they should know us for what we are, and that they should despise us if we are despicable.”
Pascal. p. 179


The above quotation was taken from the book, Royal Insignia, compiled by Edwin and Lillian Harvey on the subject of humility. A further quotation from Coleridge echoes Pascal’s sentiment:
“If a foe hath kenn’d,
Or worse than foe, an alienated friend,
A rib of dry rot in thy ship’s stout side,
Think it God’s message, and in humble pride
With heart of oak replace it: thine the gains!
Give him the rotten timber for his pains!”
—Coleridge.
“Ambition is a gilded misery,” states Bernard of Clairvaux, “a secret poison, a hidden plague, the engineer of deceit, the mother of hypocrisy, the parent of envy, the original of vices, the moth of holiness, the blinder of hearts, turning medicines into maladies and remedies into diseases.”
—St. Bernard. Royal Insignia, p. 182

“Ah, Lord, since in Thy hands the most feeble things gain power and strength, and a reed placed within them becomes a scepter, take Thou my heart; it is but a reed, flexible and versatile, turning with every wind; a hollow reed, empty of charity, of devotion, empty of all good. But from the moment it is placed in Thy hands, it will be filled with the strength of Thy divine Spirit, and will become a generous heart, a firm heart, an ardent and fervent heart, ready to surmount all difficulties, and to make all obstacles give way before its indefatigable perseverance.” Ibid, p. 188

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Hallowed Work

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I asked of God that He should give success
To the high task I sought for Him to do;
I asked that every hindrance might grow less
And that my hours of weakness might be few;
I asked that far and lofty heights be scaled;
And now I humbly thank Him that I failed.
For with the pain and sorrow came to me
A dower of tenderness in act and thought;
And with the failure came a sympathy,
An insight which success had never brought.
Father, I had been foolish and unblest
If Thou hadst granted me my blind request.
—J. Stuart Holden. P. 146


This poem should be of great encouragement to many of us who feel we have been hindered in life from being a true success. In God’s economy, He turns seeming failures into the greatest of our achievements although we usually cannot view them as such at the time. This poem is taken from in the book, Royal Insignia, a compilation on humility written and compiled by Edwina and Lillian Harvey.
Frances Ridley Havergal tells us that “weakness will be power,” when we realize our need of total reliance on the Lord:

“I could not do without Thee!
I cannot stand alone:
I have no strength or goodness,
No wisdom of my own.
But Thou, beloved Savior,
Art all in all to me;
And weakness will be power,
If leaning hard on Thee.”
—Frances Ridley Havergal, Royal Insignia, p. 178

Without humility religious progress is impossible. The true growth of the soul is not to be measured by our attempting many extraordinary duties but by our power of doing simple duties well. And humility, when it reigns in the soul, carries this principle into practice. It bids us hallow our work, especially whatever may be to us hard or distasteful work.—H. P. Liddon, Ibid, p. 146
Royal Insignia is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.

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Make Something of Yourself—How?

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Most of us find that we are being urged in a thousand ways to step up, make something of ourselves often at the cost of others, and realize our full potential. While in Christ, we certainly can become the full-orbed person we were created to be, the way to achieve this is often the reverse of what the world would advise. In the book Royal Insignia, we are reminded of our Master’s example and urged to follow in His steps. On page 194, we read Campbell Morgan’s comments on Christ’s washing His disciples’ feet in the thirteenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel:


“That knotted towel was the badge of slavery; but here is the remarkable fact that the knotted garment was also the insignia of princes, with the very same method of fastening and tying. The difference was in material—for the slave a rough homespun cloth; for princes purple or gold. I think back through the years; and John saw in that girdle not only the badge of slavery, but the girdle of kingship. We do not forget when he was in Patmos, and he had a vision of this Selfsame One in all His glory, in that marvelous description He has given, among other things he wrote, ‘girt about at the breast with a golden girdle.’ Yes, he saw that in Patmos, and looking back, he saw the sackcloth of the slave transmuted into the glory and purple of sovereignty.”

What condescension,
Bringing us redemption . . .
God, gracious, tender,
Laid aside His splendor,
Stooping to woo, to win, to save my soul.
—W. E. Booth-Clibborn. Royal Insignia, p. 196
O blessed name of SERVANT! comprehending
Man’s highest honor in his humblest name;
For Thou, God’s Christ, that office recommending,
The throne of mighty power didst truly claim;
He who would rise like Thee, like Thee must owe
His glory only to his stooping low.
—Bethune. Ibid, p. 194
Royal Insignia is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.

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Always Be Aware You May Be Wrong

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Royal Insignia is the title given to a compilation on the subject of humility, written and compiled by Edwin and Lillian Harvey, and it makes us ask the question, “What indeed is the sign that we are true followers of Jesus Christ? Watchman Nee puts this exact question to us in the following quotation from the above-mentioned book:
“Circumcision was a sign that marked out the Jew from the rest of mankind. What is the corresponding mark of our Christian life before men? Is it charity? Wisdom? Sincerity? Zeal? Other men have these. None of them is peculiar to the people of God, but there is one that is. It is a seemly absence of self-confidence! What distinguishes God’s own is that their confidence in the flesh is destroyed and they are cast back upon Him.

I have known Christians who are so sure they know the will of God that they will not for one moment consider they may be mistaken. I tell you they still lack the supreme sign of the spiritual “circumcision,” namely, no confidence in the flesh. The spiritual man walks humbly, always aware he may be wrong. He assents gladly to the apocryphal beatitude: Happy are they who realize they may be mistaken!”
—Watchman Nee in A Table in the Wilderness. Quoted in Royal Insignia, p. 166

“Meekness,” states Oswald Chambers, “is a state of flexibility in the hand of God and a condition of inflexibility to evil. It is a domestic word used of a disciplined animal. Meekness is self-control and like the mighty engine can polish a needle or cut a bar of iron. It is man’s spirit under the control of God’s Spirit.
—Oswald Chambers. Royal Insignia, p. 168

Live Christ—and though thy road may be
The strait way of humility;
He Who first trod that way of God
Will clothe thee with His dignity.
—John Oxenham. Royal Insignia, p.176

Royal Insignia is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.

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Revealed Unto Babes

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Childhood often holds a truth with its feeble finger, which the grasp of manhood cannot retain, which it is the pride of utmost age to recover,” says John Ruskin.

“Spiritual childhood is better than natural childhood,” writes Alfred Cookman in the same vein, “for it combines all that is good in a child’s heart with what is valuable in that same heart when matured. The trust may be stronger and more perfect, and purity purer, something much more than the innocence of ignorance.”

Both these quotations on the importance of becoming as little children if we would discover the secret of spiritual fulfillment, are taken from the compilation on humility, Royal Insignia, page 159 The following page contains some stanzas from the poem by Trudy Harvey Tait on the same subject:

The nature of a little child,
I simply could not see
How such a nature ever could
Become a part of me.

The pride of years would never let
My Savior on the Throne,
But crowned me King and kept me where
I reigned, just I alone

This pride, oh, what a horrid thing,
Kept me from bending low,
So through the kingdom’s door, you see,
I simply could not go. . . .

Then, oh the wonder of that day,
I saw what I should do;
I said, “Lord Jesus, I step down
And give the throne to You.”

And so when I by faith obeyed,
A miracle of grace
Within this haughty heart of mine,
That moment did take place. . . .

Now would I, dare I, could I try
Once more the Kingdom’s door?
I longed to, yet it looked so low,
So near unto the floor.

But beckoned by the pierced Hand
Which had removed my sin,
Upon my knees, now weak and small,
A child, I entered in. . . .

And so, diminished as I am,
Stripped of all else but grace,
I live, a trusting little child.
And look upon His face. . . .
—Trudy Tait.
Royal Insignia is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.

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Self Love

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Edwin and Lillian Harvey, authors of the compilation Royal Insignia, included quotations from many authors, preachers, and missionaries who discovered by personal experience that pride is, as J. N. Darby puts it, “the greatest of all evils that beset us. “And,” Darby continues, “of all our enemies it is that which dies the slowest and hardest; even the children of the world are able to discern this. Madam de Stael said on her deathbed, ‘Do you know what is the last to die in man? It is “self-love.”’


“God hates pride above all things because it gives to man the place that belongs to Him Who is above, exalted over all. Pride intercepts communion with God, and draws down His chastisement, for ‘God resisteth the proud.’ Royal Insignia, p. 87.

But not only does Royal Insignia include many warnings regarding the danger of pride, it extols the beauty of being nothing. “If I be content to be nothing,” says R. C. Chapman, “I cannot take offence; and when I am really humble and know myself a worm, I shall not complain if trampled on. Ibid, p. 82

Luther said, “Never are men more unfit than when they think themselves most fit, and best prepared for their duty; never more fit, than when most humbled and ashamed under a sense of their own unfitness.” P. 96

What is all righteousness that men devise?
What, but a sordid bargain for the skies?
But Christ as soon would abdicate His own,
As stoop from Heaven to sell the proud a throne.
—William Cowper. P. 96

Royal Insignia is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their online Christian Bookstore.

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Deepest Humblings in the Presence of the Highest One

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“As we draw nearer to God,” says Helena Garratt, “and better understand His ways, we learn to make records according to His mind. We begin to count His humiliations, His testings, His chastenings, as our most cherished spiritual experiences. The saint who has had the best year in God’s sight is not the one who has had an easy path, or has achieved the highest success; not the one whose praises filled the lips of men, but the one who has known the deepest humblings in the presence of the Highest One, and who has bowed lowest at His feet. The Lord Jesus said, ‘Whosoever shall humble himself . . . the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’


The above quotation is taken from pages 81-82 in Royal Insignia, written and compiled by Edwin and Lillian Harvey. John Newton echoed the same sentiment a few pages further on:
“One great cause of our frequent conflict is that we have a secret desire to be rich, and it is the Lord’s design to make us poor: we want to gain an ability of doing something, and He suits His dispensations to convince us that we can do nothing. We want a stock in ourselves, and He would have us absolutely dependent upon Him. So far as we are content to be weak that His power may be magnified in us, so far shall we make our enemies know that we are strong, though we ourselves shall never be directly sensible that we are so. Only by comparing what we are with the opposition we stand against, we may come to a comfortable conclusion that the Lord worketh mightily in us (Psa. 41:11). Ibid, p. 86

Then learn to scorn the praise of men,
And learn to lose with God;
For Jesus won the world through shame,
And beckons thee His road.
God’s glory is a wondrous thing,
Most strange in all its ways,
And, of all things on earth, least like
What men agree to praise.

As He can endless glory weave
From what men reckon shame,
In His own world He is content
To play a losing game.
—Frederick Faber. Ibid, p. 88
Royal Insignia is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their online Christian Bookstore.

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Walk as He Walked.

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Royal Insignia, compiled by Edwin and Lillian Harvey, contains many inspiring quotations on varied aspects of humility which, as the title suggests, is the badge of every true believer in Christ. The following excerpts are on the subject of nothingness, a subject none too popular in today’s culture but indispensible, nevertheless, to those of us who strive to follow in our Master’s footsteps.

Thus though worn, and tried, and tempted,
Glorious calling, saint, is thine;
Let the Lord but find thee emptied,
Living branch in Christ, the Vine!
Vessels of the world’s despising,
Vessels weak, and poor, and base,
Bearing wealth God’s heart is prizing,
Glory from Christ’s blessed face.

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Oh to be but emptier, lowlier,
Mean, unnoticed, and unknown,
And to God a vessel holier,
Filled with Christ and Christ alone!
Naught of earth to cloud the glory,
Naught of self the light to dim,
Telling forth His wondrous story,
Emptied, to be filled with Him.
–Paul Gerhardt, Royal Insignia, p. 108

We are nothing unless we abide in God; we can do nothing apart from Christ. We know and admit this as a doctrine, but to realize it as a fact, painful and humbling experience is often needed. But in this lowest humiliation is our true and highest exaltation. God takes all things from us that we may turn again to Him as our sure Portion; He makes us feel our weakness, our poverty, our ignorance, in order that we may return to Him.—Adolph Saphir in The Hidden Life, quoted in Royal Insignia, p. 112

Beware of too sublime a sense
Of your own worth and consequence.
The man who dreams himself so great,
And his importance of such weight,
That all around in all that’s done
Must move and act for him alone,
Will learn in school of tribulation
The folly of his expectation.
—William Cowper. Royal Insignia, p. 114

Royal Insignia is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.

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Royal Insignia, The Low Door of the Cross

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Royal Insignia is a collection of 98 two-page readings on the subject of humility and is compiled by Edwin and Lillian Harvey. One of these readings is entitled “The low door of the cross,” and contains a poem written by Annie Johnson Flint who was barred from entering her chosen career as a concert pianist by crippling arthritis.

“Oh, straight and narrow is the door,
The little door of loss,
By which we enter in to Christ,
The low door of the Cross:
But when we put away our pride,
And in contrition come,
We find it is the only way
That leads to God and Home.

“Oh, strait and lowly are the doors
By which Christ comes to us;
We bar the entrance gates of joy,
And when He finds them thus,
By strange, small doors of woe and want,
Of trial and of pain,
He enters in to share our lives
To our eternal gain.

“The narrow doors He brings us to,
The little doors and low,
What large rooms they will open on,
If we will only go:
The strange, small doors of work and want,
Strait doors of grief and pain,
What riches they will lead us to!
What everlasting gain!” Royal Insignia, p. 78
In the next reading, “The Door of Destitution,” there is a quotation along the same lines by Oswald Chambers, taken from his book, He Shall Glorify Me:
“We learn to welcome the patience of Jesus only when we get to the point of human destitution. It is not that God will not do anything for us until we get there, but that He cannot. God can do nothing for me if I am sufficient for myself. When we come to the place of destitution spiritually we find the Lord waiting, and saying, ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.’ There are hundreds at the place of destitution and they don’t know what they want. If I have been obeying the command of Jesus to ‘go and make disciples’ I know what they want; they want Him. We are so interested in our own spiritual riches that souls are white unto harvest all around us and we don’t reap one for Him.
Some men enter the Kingdom of Heaven through crushing, tragic, overwhelming conviction of sin, but they are not the greatest number; the greatest number enter the Kingdom along this line of spiritual destitution—no power to lay hold of God, no power to do what I ought to do, utterly poverty-stricken.” Royal Insignia, p. 69.

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The Venom of Pride, A little push downwards

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“He that is down needs fear no fall;
He that is low no pride;
He that is humble, ever shall
Have God to be his guide.”
—John Bunyan. Royal Insignia, p. 66


Many Christians will be familiar with these famous lines written by John Bunyan. Edwin and Lillian Harvey have included them in Royal Insignia, their compilation on humility, in the reading entitled “A little push downwards.” In the same reading they have included an epitaph written by William Cowper for his friend, Hooker:
“He that lay so long obscurely low,
Doth now preferred to greater honors go.
Ambitious men, learn hence to be more wise,
Humility is the true way to rise:
And God in me this lesson did inspire,
To bid this humble man, ‘Friend, sit up higher.’”
–William Cowper. Royal Insignia, p. 66

“In all the copious language of the Greeks,” says John Wesley, “there was not one word for humility till it was made by the great Apostle Paul. The whole Roman language, even with all the improvements of the Augustan age, does not afford so much as a name for humility.”—Royal Insignia, p. 69/em>

The above quote was taken from a reading entitled “The Venom of Pride.” In the same reading we have the following comment by Spurgeon on this “venom.” “There never was a saint yet that grew proud of his fine feathers, but what the Lord plucked them out by and by. There never yet was an angel that had pride in his heart, but he lost his wings and fell in Gehenna, as Satan and those fallen angels did. And there never shall be a saint who indulges self-conceit and pride and self-confidence, but the Lord will spoil his glories and trample his honors in the mire.”
—Royal Insignia, p. 69

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