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OF HONOURING PARENTS.
are good and grateful sons, thus answer your worldly minded mother. "My father is the source of my being—that is, of my soul; and all things which I possess, are his free gift." Therefore, I advise you not to desire length of years, which may approach in suffering, poverty, and blindness; for then the world will flee you, how much soever you cling to it. No longer than you can be serviceable will you be valued[1]. Remember this, and study to amend your lives with all diligence; that so you may come eventually to everlasting life, To which may God lead us, who lives, &c.
- ↑ The sentiment here expressed, implies a greater knowledge of the world than we should have looked for in an ascetic; but we frequently meet with a shrewd reflection when least prepared for it—as the forest-ranger finds the "cowslip, violet, and the primrose pale," ornamenting the wildest and most sequestered nooks. Old Burton has a passage so similar, both in thought and expression, that I cannot forbear affixing it at foot. "Our estate and bene esse ebbs and flows with our commodity; and as we are endowed or enriched, so we are beloved or esteemed: it lasts no longer than our wealth; when that is gone, and the object removed, farewell friendship: as long as bounty, good cheer, and rewards were to be hoped, friends enough; they were tied to thee by the teeth, and would follow thee as crows do a carcase: but when thy goods are gone and spent, the lamp of their love is out; and thou shall be contemned, scorned, hated, injured."—Anatomy of Melancholy. Vol. II. p. 169.
