He that is despised, and hath a servant, is better than he that honoureth himself, and lacketh bread.
Domestic modesty and display
Vanity, or love of display, is one of the most contemptible and pernicious passions that can take possession of the human mind. Its roots are self-ignorance, its fruits are affectation and falsehood. The text refers to this in families, and when it takes possession of households it often destroys domestic comforts.
I. There are domestic comforts without display. In many an unpretending cottage there is more real domestic enjoyment than can be found in the most imposing mansions.
II. There is domestic display without comforts. Many sacrifice comforts for appearances. They all but starve their domestics to feed their vanity. They must be grand though they lack bread. This love of appearance, this desire for show, is making sad havoc with the homes of old England.
III. The condition of the former is preferable to that of the latter. It is better to have comforts without show than show without comforts.
1. It is more rational.
2. It is more moral.
3. It is more satisfying. (Homilist.)
Vain honouring of self
Amid the changes of this world, I have seen a man who, having known better days, had been nursed by luxury, and reared in the lap of fulness, outlive his good-fortune, and sink down into the baseness and meanness of the deepest poverty--in such a case it seems to be with men as with plants. Naturalists find it much less easy to teach a mountain flower to accommodate itself to a low locality than to persuade one which by birth belongs to the valleys to live and thrive at a lofty elevation; so there seems nothing more difficult to men than to descend gracefully. .. And thus I have seen such an one as I have described, when he had lost his wealth, retain his vanity, continuing proud in spirit when he had become poor in circumstances. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)