“At that moment, I sensed a kind of Pontius Pilate feeling, for I felt free of all guilt.” Who was he to judge? Who was he “to have [his] own thoughts in this matter”? Well, he was neither the first nor the last to be ruined by modesty.
"Ruined by modesty." I found that to be one of the most piercing lessons of the entire book. Humility can be an escape from duty that the devil eagerly shows us and hurries us through, the underground railroad beneath to escape the path of moral courage above: the words we should say and the deeds we should do. The lesson: be humble enough to be "quick to hear, slow to speak", but do not allow the idea of humility to turn this into "quick to hear, speak not at all".
