Audiobook · read by volunteers
Humility: The Beauty of Holiness
Andrew Murray (1828–1917)
Read by Nathan · 12 chapters · 2 h 05
About the book
Humility: The Beauty of Holiness is a short book by the South African pastor Andrew Murray, who argues that humility is the root of the whole Christian life. He explores how Jesus lived it, what it means in daily conduct, and why pride is so stubborn an obstacle. Murray writes that without humility there can be no true abiding in God’s presence or experience of his favour. The book is divided into twelve brief chapters, and each is a meditation that can be heard on its own. The tone is earnest, practical and encouraging, with a clear aim of helping the reader to change. It has been read by a single LibriVox volunteer, and it suits listeners who like devotional writing from the late nineteenth century. The chapters are short and can be heard one at a time.
Introduction
Andrew Murray lived from 1828 to 1917. He was a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa and an extremely prolific writer of devotional books, many of which were translated into dozens of languages. He was also known as a preacher and as a leader in missionary work and in the education of his community. Humility: The Beauty of Holiness appeared in 1895, and it is among the best known of his shorter works.
The central claim of the book is that humility is not simply one virtue among others but the basis from which the rest of the Christian life grows. Murray draws on the example of Christ and on passages from the Bible to argue that the humble person lives in dependence on God and in service to others. He is realistic about the difficulty of the task, and he spends time on the way pride can disguise itself, even in religious people.
The style belongs to the devotional literature of its time: simple sentences, repetition for emphasis, frequent quotations from scripture. Each chapter works as a meditation that could be taken in a single sitting, and the whole is organised so as to move from the nature of humility to its practice.
The recording consists of 12 chapters and lasts a little over two hours. One LibriVox volunteer reads the whole book. It will be of interest to Christian listeners and to readers who want to know how such questions of character were presented in the Protestant world of the late nineteenth century. It may also appeal to those who find in the idea of humility something worth reflecting on today. Each can be heard as a morning or evening meditation, and the repeated return to a single theme gives the whole a quiet unity.
Public domain
Andrew Murray died in 1917: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text