There are a number of recognized Christian virtues, such as unselfishness, meekness, and self sacrifice, which are not only very unpopular with the world at large, but which, when practised from the human standpoint, seem actually to encourage or even to produce the opposite traits in others. Probably we all have among our acquaintances at least one faithful, unselfish person whose attitude we feel opens the way for the stubbornness and self-will of some bosom companion and the frequent imposition of people in general. The lot of such a person is often most unenviable, and in any case there is none of the inspiration to go and do likewise that would be the effect if one were faithfully living the Christ-qualities.
Jesus declared no one could be his disciple unless he denied himself. He promised that the one who was willing to lose his life for his sake should find it, and he also said that the meek should inherit the earth. Here is divine assurance that meekness and utter sacrifice of self gain spiritual life and dominion. Yet in the face of this changeless promise of the Master we often find those who in exercising these virtues from their standpoint have repressed many splendid qualities, leaving them dormant and undeveloped, and usually in such cases their relations with other people are colorless and weak. Surely this does not point to the grandeur of spiritual life and the heritage of God's children!
What then is wrong in such a condition? Often this question is turned aside with such stock phrases as: "Well, you know you can have too much of a good thing," or, "It is better not to run to extremes in anything." This is just begging the question. Of course no one can be too good if the goodness is genuine. No one believes he can have too much honesty, moral courage, or purity. Then why should he believe he can be too meek or unselfish? Is it not because to human sense honesty, moral courage, and purity are not so dependent upon our contact with other people as are meekness and unselfishness; and therefore, in what might be called to human sense those more impersonal virtues, it is easier to act from Principle and to be unconfused by personality?
