"We have no conception or idea of what God will show us, if we persevere in seeking Him; and it is He who puts this wish into our hearts. All I can say to you is: Persevere; avoid the world and its poor wretched little talk about others; never mind being thought stupid; look on everything with regard to the great day, and trust Him implicitly." "Christ must _actually die_, not come _very near_ death; and so must we, if we would rise. I once thought it possible to bargain with Christ; to say, I will give up half of my desire of the world, and gain, in the gap, a corresponding measure of Christ. It was no good: I lost the half, but did not get the measure filled. Then I tried to give up a little more, but with the same result; now I think God has shown me that it is not the least use trying these subtle bargains; that the giving up little by little is more wearisome and trying than _one_ surrender, and _that_ I trust He will give me power to make." Another reason, doubtless, why he shunned fashionable society was his extreme sensitiveness to praise. His honest, straightforward nature could not tolerate the praise that so often is showered upon great men. He used to say:-- "If a man speaks well of me, divide it by millions and then it will be millions of times too favourable. If a man speaks evil of me, multiply it by millions and it will be millions of times too favourable. Man is disguised, as far as his neighbour is concerned; this disguise is his outward goodness. Some have it in a slight measure torn off in this life, and are judged accordingly by those whose disguise of goodness is more intact; the revelation of the evil by this partial tearing off is but the manifestation of what exists. Whether the disguise is torn or intact, the interior and true state (known to God quite clearly) is the same corrupt thing; the eye of the 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?