that they might read their own image; but, being “unwilling to provoke all men” against him, he had restrained himself from particular application. Though his “eye had not been much {126} set on worldly promotion,” he had sometimes been allured, by affection for friends and familiar acquaintances, to reside too long in some places, to the neglect of others which had an equal or perhaps stronger claim on his labours. Formerly he thought he had not sinned, if he had not been idle; now he was convinced that it was his duty to have considered how long he should remain in one place, and how many hungry souls were starving elsewhere. Sometimes, at the solicitation of friends, he had spared himself, and devoted to worldly business, or to bodily recreation and exercise, the time which ought to have been employed in the discharge of his official duties. “Besides these,” says he, “I was assaulted, yea infected, with more gross sins, that is, my wicked nature desired the favours, the estimation, and praise of men; against which, albeit that sometimes the Spirit of God did move me to fight, and earnestly did stir me (God knoweth I lie not) to sob and lament for these imperfections, yet never ceased they to trouble me when any occasion was offered; and so privily and craftily did they enter into my breast, that I could not perceive myself to be wounded till vainglory had almost got the upper hand. O Lord! be merciful to my great offence; and deal not with me according to my great iniquity, but according to the multitude of thy mercies.”[182] Such was the strict scrutiny which Knox made into his ministerial conduct. To many the offences {127} of which he accused himself will appear slight and venial, while others will perceive in them nothing worthy of blame; but they struck his mind in a very different light, in the hour of adversity and solitary meditation. If he, whose labours were so abundant as to appear to us excessive, had such reason for self‑condemnation, how few are there in the same station who may not say, “I do remember my faults this day!”