being by the Creator to be fellow-workers with
nature; and such they still are to those 'who walk not after the flesh
but after the Spirit.' But in you who are altogether carnal, having
nothing of the Spirit, they are adversaries, and play the part of
enemies and foemen. For Desire, working in you, stirreth up pleasure,
but, when made of none effect, Anger. To-day therefore let these be
banished from thee, and let Wisdom and Righteousness sit to hear and
judge that which we say. For if thou put Anger and Desire out of
court, and in their room bring in Wisdom and Righteousness, I will
truthfully tell thee all." Then spake the king, "Lo I yield to thy
request, and will banish out of the assembly both Desire and Anger, and
make Wisdom and Righteousness to sit between us. So now, tell me
without fear, how wast thou so greatly taken with this error, to prefer
the bird in the bush to the bird already in the hand?"

The hermit answered and said, "O king, if thou askest the cause how I
came to despise things temporal, and to devote my whole self to the
hope of things eternal, hearken unto me. In former days, when I was
still but a stripling, I heard a certain good and wholesome saying,
which, by its three took my soul by storm; and the remembrance of it,
like some divine seed, being planted in my heart, unmoved, was
preserved ever until it took root, blossomed, and bare that fruit which
thou seest in me. Now the meaning of that sentence was this: 'It
seemed good to the foolish to despise the things that are, as though
they were not, and to cleave and cling to the things that are not, as
though they were. So he, that hath never tasted the sweetness of the
things that are, will not be able to understand the nature of the
things that are not. And never having understood them, how shall he
despise them?' Now that saying meant by 'things that are' the things
eternal and fixed, but by 'things that are not' earthly life, luxury,
the prosperity that deceives, whereon, O king, thine heart alas! is
fixed amiss. Time was when I also clung thereto myself. But the force
of that sentence continually goading my heart, stirred my governing
power, my mind, to make the better choice. But 'the law of sin,
warring against the law of my mind,' and binding me, as with iron
chains, held me captive to the love of things present.

"But 'after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour' was pleased
to deliver me from that harsh captivity