his soul. But
that is his goodness ever ready to do, unless there be hindrance
through the untowardness of our own froward will.

XVIII

And now, being somewhat in comfort and courage before, we may the
more quietly consider everything, which is somewhat more hard and
difficult to do when the heart is before taken up and oppressed
with the troublous affection of heavy sorrowful fear. Let us
therefore examine now the weight and the substance of those bodily
pains which you rehearsed before as the sorest part of this
persecution. They were, if I remember you right, thraldom,
imprisonment, and painful and shameful death. And first let us, as
reason is, begin with the thraldom, for that was, as I remember it,
the first.

VINCENT: I pray you, good uncle, say then somewhat of that. For
methinketh, uncle, that captivity is a marvellous heavy thing,
namely when they shall (as they most commonly do) carry us far from
home into a strange unknown land.

ANTHONY: I cannot deny that some grief it is, cousin, indeed. But
yet, as for me, it is not half so much as it would be if they could
carry me out into any such unknown country that God could not know
where nor find the means to come at me!

But now in good faith, cousin, if my migration into a strange
country were any great grief unto me, the fault should be much in
myself. For since I am very sure that whithersoever man convey me,
God is no more verily here than he shall be there, if I get (as I
can, if I will) the grace to set mine whole heart upon him and long
for nothing but him, it can then make no matter to my mind, whether
they carry me hence or leave me here. And then, if I find my mind
much offended therewith, that I am not still here in mine own
country, I must consider that the cause of my grief is mine own
wrong imagination, whereby I beguile myself with an untrue
persuasion, thinking that this were mine own country. Whereas in
truth it is not so, for, as St. Paul saith, "We have here no city
nor dwelling-country at all, but we seek for one that we shall come
to." And in whatsoever country we walk in this world, we are but as
pilgrims and wayfaring men. And if I should take any country for
mine own, it must be the country to which I come and not the
country from which I came. That country, which shall be to me then
for a while so strange, shall yet perdy be no more strange to
me--nor longer strange to me, neither--than was mine own native
country when fir