Therefore, in our highest state, we shall desire all men's esteem.
Paradoxical, but true. If we believe in Christmas-day; if we believe in
Whitsunday, we shall believe that Christ is in all men, that God's spirit
is abroad in the earth, and therefore the dispraise, misunderstanding, and
calumny of men will be exquisitely painful to us, and ought to be so; and,
on the other hand, the esteem of men, and renown among men for doing good
deeds will be inexpressibly precious to us. They will be signs and warrants
to us that God is pleased with us, that we are sharing in that 'honour and
glory' which Paul promises again and again, with no such scruples as yours,
to those who lead heroic lives. We shall not neglect the voice of God
within us; but we shall remember that there is also a voice of God without
us, which we must listen to; and that in a Christian land, _vox populi_,
patiently and discriminately listened to, is sure to be found not far off
from the _vox Dei_.

"Now, let me seriously urge this last fact on you. Of course, in listening
to the voice of the man outside there is a danger, as there is in the use
of any faculty. You may employ it, according to Divine reason and grace,
for ennobling and righteous purposes; or you may degrade it to carnal and
selfish ones; so you may degrade the love of praise into vanity, into
longing for the honour which comes from men, by pandering to their passions
and opinions, by using your powers as they would too often like to use
theirs, for mere self-aggrandisement, by saying in your heart--_quam
pulchrum digito monstrari el diceri hic est_. That is the man who wrote the
fine poem, who painted the fine picture, and so forth, till, by giving way
to this, a man may give way to forms of vanity as base as the red Indian
who sticks a fox's tail on, and dances about boasting of his brute cunning.
I know all about that, as well as any poor son of Adam ever did. But I
know, too, that to desire the esteem of as many rational men as possible;
in a word, to desire an honourable, and true renown for having done good