+III. That no man can afford to be independent of human sympathy.+--1. _Fancied superiority to sympathy is self-deception._ "If a man think himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself" (ver. 3). Others will see how little his affected eminence is worth. Some will humour his vanity, many will ridicule or pity it, few will be deceived by it. Real knowledge is humble; it knows its nothingness. Socrates, when the oracle pronounced him the wisest man in Greece, at last discovered that the response was right, inasmuch as he alone was aware that he knew nothing, while other men were confident of their knowledge. It is in humility and dependence, in self-forgetting, that true wisdom begins. Who are we, although the most refined or highest in place, that we should despise plain, uncultured members of the Church, those who bear life's heavier burdens and amongst whom our Saviour spent His days on earth, and treat them as unfit for our company, unworthy of fellowship with us in Christ? (_Findlay_). The most exalted and gifted is never lifted above the need of fellow-sympathy. 2. _A searching examination into our conduct will reveal how little cause there is for boasting a fancied superiority._--"But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another" (ver. 4). As if the apostle said: "Let each man try his own work. Judge yourselves instead of judging one another. Mind your own duty rather than your neighbours' faults. Do not think of your worth or talents in comparison with theirs but see to it that your work is right." The question for each of us is not, "What do others fail to do?" but, "What am I myself really doing? What will my life's work amount to when measured by that which God expects from me?" The petty comparisons which feed our vanity and our class-prejudices are of no avail at the bar of God. If we study our brother's work, it should be with a view of enabling him to do it better, or to learn to improve our own by his example; not in order to find excuses for ourselves in his shortcomings. If our work abide the test, we shall have glorying in ourselves alone, not in regard to our neighbour. Not his flaws and failures, but my own honest work, will be the ground of my satisfaction (_Ibid._).