"This is one great reason why I never desire to enter social life, for there is very great difficulty in knowing people and not discussing others." Considering how thorough Gordon himself was, and how intensely he hated shams of every kind, it is not surprising to find that, with his naturally critical temperament, he used most relentlessly to expose the unreality of many who, acknowledging the truth of Christianity, practically denied its power. "As a rule, Christians are really more inconsistent than 'worldlings.' They talk truths, and do not act on them. They allow that 'God is the God of the widows and orphans,' yet they look in trouble to the gods of silver and gold: either He can help altogether, or not at all. He will not be served in conjunction with idols of any sort.... "How unlike in acts are most of so-called Christians to their Founder! You see in them no resemblance to Him. Hard, proud, 'holier than thou,' is their uniform. _They have the truth_, no one else, it is _their_ monopoly." But though he avoided Christians of this type, he had a great yearning for the society of those who were real, and had more sympathy with the weaknesses of those who were true, in spite of their failings, than most men. He was fully conscious of the natural depravity of his own heart, and so was ever tender to those who fell. Nobody was more willing than he to act to a fellow Christian on the principle laid down in the lines-- "Help a poor and weary brother Pulling hard against the stream." He loved Christian society of the right sort, and, under its influence, his whole nature would expand, and he would converse for hours together. Writing from Galatz, where he went after the pleasant time spent at Gravesend, he says, "I feel much also the want of some religious talk," thereby adding another illustration to the truth of that text, "They that love the Lord spake often one to another." General Gordon's temperament was not that of the monk who shuns his fellow-creatures, and it must therefore have been all the greater trial for him to cut himself off from his friends for so many years at a time as he used to do. Indeed he used to speak of it as "a living death." But the great lesson of his life was that of self-sacrifice for the good of others. Speaking to the editor of a journal, to which reference has already been made, he once said, "When I was in the Soudan, I used to pray every day, 'O Lord, let me be crushed. Lay the punishment of their sins upon me.'" Then, as if he was afraid of being misunderstood, he said, "It was a strange prayer, was it not? As if I had not enough of my own sins to bear!" Few men have learned better than he the great lesson taught from the Cross of Calvary, and few have practised that lesson more completely.