Spirit discerns through the disguise.

"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