CHAPTER XXXVI SET NOT THY HEART ON RICHES 1. The rich satisfy themselves with giving alms to the needy. They think little of more fatal gifts which they perpetually bestow. THE LOVE OF WEALTH 2. They think little that their idolatry of outward prosperity, and their contempt of inferior conditions, are teaching the destitute that there is but one good on earth, namely, property, the very good in which the poor have no share. 3. The poor think that none are worldlings and covetous but the rich. But he may love riches that wanteth them, as much as he that hath them. 4. If thou lovest the world and worldly plenty inordinately, and covetest more, thou art a covetous worldling, though thou wish it not from another. 5. It is the worldly mind and love of wealth that is the sin at the root; the ways of getting it are but the branches. 6. Be charitable before wealth make thee covetous, and lose not the glory of the mite. If riches increase, let thy mind hold pace with them. 7. Gold thou may'st safely touch, but if it stick Unto thy hands, it woundeth to the quick. COVETOUS- 8. All vices wax old by age; covetousness alone groweth young. 9. Watching for riches consumeth the flesh, and the care thereof driveth away sleep. 10. Extol not riches, then, the toil of fools, The wise man's cumbrance, if not nare more apt Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise. 11. There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt. 12. It is not so sad to be drunk with wine as with covetousness. For he that is seized with illness from wine after the night is over may get sober, but the covetous person is always drunken, day and night, watching or sleeping. RICHES 13. What severer evil can befall one than being never satisfied, than being in a continual thirst, than struggling with a perpetual hunger, than having pains day by day, than being never sober, than being continually in worries and harasses ? 14. What profit is there from our many goods, If care, with evil thoughts, Is still the nurse of fair prosperity ? 15. Some men choose to be miserable that they may be rich, rather than be happy with the expense of money and doing noble things. 16. As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool. 17. They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. 18. For the love of money is the root of all evil; which while some coveted after, they have pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 19. Covetousness cracks the sinews of faith; numbs the apprehension of anything above sense. 20. I cannot but think that the extreme passion for getting rich, absorbing the whole energies of life, predisposes to mental degeneracy in offspring, either to moral defect or to intellectual deficiency, or to outbursts of positive insanity. 21. When shall we learn that he who multiplieth possessions multiplieth troubles, and that the single use of things which we call our own, is that they may be his who hath need of them? THE LAW OF SERVICE IS MUTUAL CONSIDERATENESS 1. Be not as a lion in thy house, nor frantic among thy servants. 2. Let thy soul love a good servant, and defraud him not of liberty. DUTIES TOWARDS WAGERECEIVERS 3. Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal. 4. If you would have good servants, see that you be good masters. 5. Put not your servants on any labour which hazardeth their health or life, without true necessity to some greater end. Should another man's life be cast away for your commodity? 6. Patiently bear with those tolerable frailties which their unskilfulness or other infirmity makes them liable to against their wills. 7. A willing mind is an excuse for many frailties. Make not a greater matter of every infirmity or fault than there is cause. Look not that any should be perfect upon earth. 8. Use not wrath and unmanlike fury with them. Find fault in season, with prudence and sobriety, when your passions are down, and when it is most likely to do good. 9. If it be too little, it will embolden them in doing ill; if it be too much, or frequent, or passionate, it will make them slight it and despise it, and utterly hinder their repentance. DUTIES 10. Servants, be as thrifty for your masters as you would be for yourselves. Waste no more of their goods than you would do if it were your own. TOWARDS EMPLOYERS 11. Say not, as false servants do: my master is rich enough, and it will do him no harm. 12. Let the value be never so small, if it be but the worth of a penny that you steal or defraud another of, the sin is not small; nay, it aggravateth the sin that you venture your soul for so small a thing. 13. Slothfulness maketh service deceitful. Such care not how they do their work, if they can but make their masters believe that it is done well. 14. They are hypocrites in their service that take more care to seem painful, trusty servants, than to be so; and to hide their faults and slothfulness than to avoid them. 15. As it is thievery or deceit for a man in the market to sell another the whole of his commodity, and when he hath done, to keep back and defraud him of a part; so it is no less for one that selleth his time and labour to another, to defraud him of part of that time and service. 16. Be faithful in performing all the labour and duty of your position. 17. Be as careful about your duty to your masters as about their duty to you; be as careful what to do as what to receive. |