Vanity of Human Glory
( St. John Henry Newman - found here ) “Let all Christians carefully ask themselves whether they are not very fond, not merely of the praise of their superiors and friends—that is right—but of that of any person, any chance-comer, about whom we know nothing. ... It is natural to love to have deference and respect paid us by our acquaintance, but the praise of a vast multitude of persons we never saw or shall see or care about: this is a depraved appetite, as unmeaning as it is sinful. It is excusable in heathens, who had no better good clearly proposed to them, but in Christians, who have the favour of God and eternal life set before them, it is deeply criminal, for it is a turning away from the bread of heaven to feed upon ashes. This love of indiscriminate praise is an odious, superfluous, wanton sin, and we should put it away with a manly hatred as something irrational and degrading. Shall man, born for high ends, the servant and son of God, the redeemed of Christ, the heir of immo...
