the
finest of the wheat, and satisfying them with honey out of the rock. And,
then, this insatiable appetite of our hearts, being so degraded and
perverted, like all degraded and perverted appetites, becomes an iron-
fast slave to what it feeds upon. What miserable slaves we all are to
the approval and the praise of men! How they hold us in their bondage!
How we lick their hands and sit up on our haunches and go through our
postures for a crumb! How we crawl on our belly and lick their feet for
a stroke and a smile! What a hound's life does that man lead who lives
upon the approval and the praise and the patronage of men! What meanness
fills his mind; what baseness fills his heart! What a shameful leash he
is led about the world in! How kicked about and spat upon he is; while
not half so much as he knows all the time that he deserves to be! Better
far be a dog at once and bay the moon than be a man and fawn upon the
praises of men.

If you would be a man at all, not to speak of a Christian man, starve
this appetite till you have quite extirpated it. You will never be safe
from it as long as it stirs within you. Extirpate it! Extirpate it! You
will never know true self-respect and you will never deserve to know it,
till you have wholly extirpated your appetite for praise. Put your foot
upon it, put it out of your heart. Stop fishing for it, and when you see
it coming, turn away and stop your ears against it. And should it still
insinuate itself, at any rate do not repeat to others what has already so
flattered and humbled and weakened you. Telling it to others will only
humble and weaken you more. By repeating the praise that you have heard
or read about yourself you only expose yourself and purchase
well-deserved contempt for yourself. And, more than that, by fishing for
praise you lay yourself open to all sorts of flatterers. Honest men, men
who truly respect and admire you, will show you their dignified regard
and appreciation of you and your work by their silence; while your leaky
slaves will crowd around you with floods of praise that they know well
will please and purchase you. And when you cannot with all your arts
squeeze a drop out of those who love and honour you, gallons will be
poured upon you by those who have respect neither for themselves nor for
you. Faugh! Flee from flatterers, and take up only with sternly true
and faithful men. "I am much less regardful," says Richard Baxter, "of