Out of Solitary Conceit

Ray Ortlund post:  "I saw great merit in it"

“When I first became a Christian, about fourteen years ago, I thought that I could do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms and reading theology, and I wouldn’t go to the churches and Gospel Halls. . . .  I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music.  But as I went on I saw the great merit in it.   I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off.   I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots.  It gets you out of your solitary conceit.”

C. S. Lewis, God In The Dock (Grand Rapids, 1970), pages 61-62.