Excerpt from Lives of Englishmen in Past Days

Well, scholar, having now taught you to paint your rod, and we having still a mile to Tottenham High Cross, I will, as we walk towards it in the-cool shade of this sweet honeysuckle - hedge, mention to you some of the thoughts and joys that have possessed my soul since we met together; and these thoughts shall be told you, that you also may join with me in thankfulness to the Giver of every good and perfect gift for our happiness. And that our present happiness may appear to be the greater, and we the more thankful for it, I will beg you to consider with me how many do, even at this very time, lie under the torment of the stone, the gout, and toothache; and this we are free from. And every misery that I miss is a new mercy; and therefore let us be thankful. There have been, since we met, others that have met disasters of broken limbs; some have been blasted, others thunder-stricken; and we have been freed from these, and all those many other miseries that threaten human nature: let us therefore rejoice and be thankful. Nay, which is a far greater mercy, we are free from the insupportable burden of an accusing, tormenting conscience - a misery that none can bear: and therefore let us praise Him for His preventing grace, and say, Every misery that I miss is a new mercy. Nay, let me tell you, there be many that have forty times our estates, that would give the greatest part of it to be healthful and cheerful like us, who, with the expense of a little money, have eat, and drank, and laughed, and angled, and sung, and slept securely; and rose next day, and cast away care, and sung, and laughed, and angled again; which are blessings rich men cannot purchase with all their money. Let me tell you, scholar, I have a rich neighbour that is always so busy that he has no leisure to laugh; the whole business of his life is to get money, and more money, th athe may still get more and more money; he is still drudging on, and says that Solomon says, The diligent hand maketh rich and it is true indeed; but he considers not that it is not in the power of riches to make a man happy; for it was wisely said, by a man of great observation, That there be as many miseries beyond riches as on this side them.' And yet God deliver us from pinching poverty, and grant that, having a competency, we may be content and thankful! Let not us repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see another abound With riches when, as God knows, the cares that are the keys that keep those riches hang often so heavily at the rich man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days and restless nights, even when others sleep quietly. Lve see but the outside of the rich man's happiness few consider him to be like the silk-worm, that, when she seems to play, is, at the very same time, Spinning her own bowels, and consuming herself; and this many rich men do, loading themselves with corroding cares, to keep what they have, probably, unconscionably got. Let us, therefore, be thankful for health and competence, and, above all, for a quiet conscience.

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