(20) Now if any one should in drunkenness or fulness fall upon them, and plunge himself into perdition, let him bear his own blame; he has need of a light in his heart, that his understanding and mind may be well governed.

A certain noble, who lived under the Christian dispensation when wine was allowed, sent his servant to a monastery to fetch some wine. The servant went and bought the wine, and was returning with it, when he passed the house of a very austere and testy devotee. This devotee called out to him, "What have you got there?" The servant said, "Wine, belonging to such a noble." The devotee said, "What! does a follower of God indulge in wine? Followers of God should have naught to do with pleasure and drinking; for wine is a very Satan, and steals men's wits. Your wits are not too bright already, so you have no need to render them still duller by drink." In illustration of this, he told the story of one Ziayi Dalaq, a very tall man, who had a dwarfish brother. This brother one day received him very ungraciously, only half rising from his seat in answer to his salutation, and Ziayi Dalaq said to him, "You seem to think yourself so tall that it is necessary to clip off somewhat of your height." Finally the devotee broke the wine-jar with a stone, and the servant went and told his master. The noble was very wrathful at the presumption of the devotee in taking upon himself to prohibit wine, as condemned by the law of nature, when it had not been prohibited by the Gospel, and he took a thick stick and went to the devotee's house to chastise him. The devotee heard of his approach and hid himself under some wool, which belonged to the ropemakers of the village, He said to himself, "To tell an angry man of his faults one needs to have a face as hard as a mirror, which reflects his ugliness without fear or favor." Just so the Prince of Tirmid was once playing chess with a courtier, and being checkmated, got into a rage and threw the chessboard at his courtier's head. So before playing the next game the courtier protected his head by wrappings of felt. Then the neighbors of the devotee, hearing the noise, came out and interceded for him with the noble, telling him that the devotee was half-witted, and could not be held responsible for his actions; and moreover, that as he was a favorite of God, it was useless to attempt to slay him before his time, for the Prophet and other saints had been miraculously preserved in circumstances fatal to ordinary persons. The noble refused to be pacified; but the neighbors redoubled their entreaties, urging that he had so much pleasure in his sovereignty that he could well dispense with the pleasure of wine. The noble strenuously denied this, saying that no other pleasure of sovereignty, or what not, could compensate him for the loss of wine, which made him sway from side to side like the jessamine. The prophets themselves had rejected all other pleasures for that of spiritual intoxication, and he who has once embraced a living mistress will never put up with a dead one. The moral is, that spiritual pleasures, typified by wine, are not to be bartered away for earthly pleasures. The Prophet said, "The world is carrion, and they who seek it are dogs;" and the Koran says, "The present life is no other than a pastime and a sport; but the future mansion is life indeed."

(1) Whither stumble ye, sots, who have sopped up the wine of ignorance and can so far not carry it that ye already even spew it forth? Stay ye, be sober, gaze upwards with the [true] eyes of the heart! And if ye cannot all, yet ye at least who can! For that the ill of ignorance doth pour o`er all the earth and overwhelm the soul that's battened down within the body, preventing it from fetching port within Salvation's harbors.

(24) "Above the gods' best gift to men ranks wine, In measure drunk; but in excess the worst."

(252) The fault of others is easily perceived, but that of oneself is difficult to perceive; a man winnows his neighbour's faults like chaff, but his own fault he hides, as a cheat hides the bad die from the gambler.

(34) Sobriety is wrong, and a straying from that other road. O thou who seekest to be contrite for the past, How wilt thou be contrite for this contrition? At one time thou adorest the music of the lute, At another embracest wailing and weeping." While the "Discerner" reflected these mysteries, Like a soul he was freed from weeping and rejoicing, His old life died, and he was regenerated. Amazement fell upon him at that moment, For he was exalted above earth and heaven,

(23) Pythagoras being asked, how a lover of wine might be cured of intoxication, answered, if he frequently surveys what his actions were when he was intoxicated. Stob. p. 165.

(24) Thus men suffer themselves easily to be turned away, and so live in their drunkenness.

(247) And the man who gives himself to drinking intoxicating liquors, he, even in this world, digs up his own root.

(21) In this chapter we have attempted, in some degree, to expound the greatness of man's soul. He who neglects it and suffers its capacities to rust or to degenerate must necessarily be the loser in this world and the next. The true greatness of man lies in his capacity for eternal progress, otherwise in this temporal sphere he is the weakest of all things, being subject to hunger, thirst, heat, cold, and sorrow. Those things he takes most delight in are often the most injurious to him, and those things which benefit him are not to be obtained without toil and trouble. As to his intellect, a slight disarrangement of matter in his brain is sufficient to destroy or madden him; as to his power, the sting of a wasp is sufficient to rob him of ease and sleep; as to his temper, he is upset by the loss of a sixpence; as to his beauty, he is little more than nauseous matter covered with a fair skin. Without frequent washing he becomes utterly repulsive and disgraceful.

A king purchased two slaves, one extremely handsome, and the other very ugly. He sent the first away to the bath, and in his absence questioned the other. He told him that the first slave had given a very bad account of him, saying that he was a thief and a bad character, and asked if it was true. The second slave replied that the first was everything that was good, his inward qualities corresponding to the beauty of his outward appearance, and that whatever he had told the king was worthy of credit. The king replied that beauty was only an accident, and that, according to the tradition, accidents "endure only two moments;" that at death the animal soul is destroyed, that the text, "Whoso shall present himself with beauty shall receive tenfold reward," I does not refer to outward accidents, but to the "substance," the eternal soul. The slave in reply urged that the accidents of good works and thoughts will in some way bear fruit in the next world, pointing out that thought is always the precursor of the completed work, as the plan of the architect precedes the building, and the gardener's design the perfect fruit resulting from his labors. He added that the world is only the realized thought of "Universal Reason" The king then sent away the slave with whom he had held this discourse, and summoned the other, and told him that his fellow slave had given a bad account of him, and asked what he had to say. He replied that his fellow slave was a liar and a rascal, and the king then dismissed him, observing that, in accordance with the tradition, "Every man is hidden under his own tongue," his tongue had betrayed his inner vileness. "The safety of a man lies in holding his tongue."

(6) "Beauty," says the tragedy, "helps no wife with her husband; But virtue has helped many; for every good wife Who is attached to her husband knows how to pracise sobriety."

(3) ¶And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life; and so

(6) And there are those whom injury seems to chafe, So that it makes them greedy for revenge, And such must needs shape out another's harm. This threefold love is wept for down below; Now of the other will I have thee hear, That runneth after good with measure faulty. Each one confusedly a good conceives Wherein the mind may rest, and longeth for it; Therefore to overtake it each one strives. If languid love to look on this attract you, Or in attaining unto it, this cornice, After just penitence, torments you for it. There's other good that does not make man happy; 'Tis not felicity, 'tis not the good Essence, of every good the fruit and root. The love that yields itself too much to this Above us is lamented in three circles; But how tripartite it may be described, I say not, that thou seek it for thyself."

(430) temperance, and then justice which is the end of our search. Very true. Now, can we find justice without troubling ourselves about temperance? I do not know how that can be accomplished, he said, nor do I desire that justice should be brought to light and temperance lost sight of; and therefore I wish that you would do me the favour of considering temperance first. Certainly, I replied, I should not be justified in refusing your request. Then consider, he said. Yes, I replied; I will; and as far as I can at present see, the virtue of temperance has more of the nature of harmony and symphony than the preceding. How so? he asked. Temperance, I replied, is the ordering or controlling of certain pleasures and desires; this is curiously enough implied in the saying of ‘a man being his own master;’ and other traces of the same notion may be found in language. No doubt, he said. There is something ridiculous in the expression ‘master of himself;’ for the master is also the servant and the servant the master; and in all these modes of speaking the same person is denoted. Certainly. The meaning is, I believe, that in the human soul there is a better and also a worse principle; and when the better has the worse under control, then a man is said to be master of himself; and this is a term of praise: but when, owing to evil education or association, the better principle, which is also the smaller, is overwhelmed by the greater mass of the

(28) Jesus said, "I took my place in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in the flesh. I found all of them intoxicated; I found none of them thirsty. And My soul became afflicted for the sons of men, because they are blind in their hearts and do not have sight; for empty they came into the world, and empty too they seek to leave the world. But for the moment they are intoxicated. When they shake off their wine, then they will repent."

(57) Give yourself gladness from the true vine of Christ. Satisfy yourself with the true wine, in which there is no drunkenness nor error. For it (the true wine) marks the end of drinking, since there is usually in it what gives joy to the soul and the mind, through the Spirit of God. But first, nurture your reasoning powers before you drink of it (the true wine).

(18) The spirit has a long time waited on them, and importuned them that they would once open the door, for the clear day is at hand; yet they walk up and down in their drunkenness, seeking for the key, when they have it about them, though they know it not; and so they go up and down in their proud and covetous drunkenness, always seeking about like the country man for his horse, who all the while he went seeking for him was riding upon the back of that very horse he looked for.

(15) No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new; for he saith, The old is better.

(6) "Rueful to thee the thirst be wherewith cracks Thy tongue," the Greek said, "and the putrid water That hedges so thy paunch before thine eyes." Then the false-coiner: "So is gaping wide Thy mouth for speaking evil, as 'tis wont; Because if I have thirst, and humour stuff me Thou hast the burning and the head that aches, And to lick up the mirror of Narcissus Thou wouldst not want words many to invite thee." In listening to them was I wholly fixed, When said the Master to me: "Now just look, For little wants it that I quarrel with thee." When him I heard in anger speak to me, I turned me round towards him with such shame That still it eddies through my memory.