"Who could bear to have this disguise quite rent off, and the evil exposed to the eyes of the world? How would the world receive me, if they knew what I really was, and what God knows that I am at this minute? Yet, how hardly I judge another whose disguise, slightly rent, shows a little of the corruption I know exists in me. Nothing evil was ever said of any man which was not true, his worst enemies could not say a thousandth part of the evil that is in him.
"Praise now humbles me, it does not elate me; did the world praise Jesus? and what right have we to take this praise of men, when it is due to Him?
"When one knows the little one does of oneself, and any one praises you, I, at any rate, have a rising, which is a suppressed 'You lie.' There are several nice bits in our Lord's life, when He replied with some unpalatable truth to those men who would follow Him, and would make much of Him, but afterwards they entirely changed their demeanour."
At one time he used, for the same reason, to avoid reading all newspapers, as they contained so much praise of him. Writing in 1882, when he was Governor-General of the Soudan, he says:—
"I have come to a conclusion; may God give me strength to keep it! Stop all the newspapers. It is no use mincing the matter; as the disease is dire, so also must be the remedy.... Newspapers feed a passion I have for giving my opinion; therefore, as we have no right to judge and have nothing to do with this world (of which we are not), this feeding must be cut short.
"The giving up the papers may cause the starvation of my passion for politics, and that scab may drop off. God has shown me what the scabs are:—Evil-speaking, lying, slandering, back-biting, scoffing, self-conceit, boasting, silly talking, and some few more.
"I wish friends would not send me papers, &c. I pass them on to ——, who is my waste-paper basket!"
Not only did he combat that part of his nature which loved the praise of men, he also sternly resisted the temptation of ambition. For instance, he writes:—
"I wonder if I look ambitious in your eyes. Do you think I sought this place? You should know better than most people, for you have all my thoughts in my letters. Judging myself, I fear it was so when I took the work in hand; not that I cared for the money or the honours to come from it. I think, however, my main idea was the Quixotic one—to help the Khedive, mixed with the feeling that I could, with God's direction, accomplish this work.
"... There is death in the seeking of high posts on this earth for the purpose of what the world calls doing great things; the mightiest of men are flies on a wheel; a kind word to a crossing-sweeper delights Christ in him, as much as it would delight Christ in a queen."