ic of sin. Breaking but
that one link will break the whole of Satan's snare and evil fetter. Here
is A Kempis's forest of vices out of which he hewed down one every year.
Restless lust, outward senses, empty phantoms, always longing to get,
always sparing to give, careless as to talk, unwilling to sit silent,
eager for food, wakeful for news, weary of a good book, quick to anger,
easy of offence at my neighbour, and too ready to judge him, too merry
over prosperity, and too gloomy, fretful, and peevish in adversity; so
often making good rules for my future life, and coming so little speed
with them all, and so on. And, in facing even such a terrible thicket as
that, let not even an old man absolutely despair. At forty, at sixty, at
threescore and ten, let not an old penitent despair. Only take axe in
hand and see if the sun does not stand still upon Gibeon, and the moon in
the valley of Ajalon till you have avenged yourself on your enemies. And
always when you stop to wipe your brow, and to whet the edge of your axe,
and to wet your lips with water, keep on saying things like those of
another great sinner deep in his thicket of vice, say this: O God, he
said, Thou hast not cut off as a weaver my life, nor from day even to
night hast Thou made an end of me. But Thou hast vouchsafed to me life
and breath even to this hour from childhood, youth, and hitherto even
unto old age. He holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to
slide, rescuing me from perils, sicknesses, poverty, bondage, public
shame, evil chances; keeping me from perishing in my sins, and waiting
patiently for my full conversion. Glory be to Thee, O Lord, glory to
Thee, for Thine incomprehensible and unimaginable goodness toward me of
all sinners far and away the most unworthy. The voices and the concert
of voices of angels and men be to Thee; the concert of all thy saints in
heaven and of all Thy creatures in heaven and on earth; and of me,
beneath their feet an unworthy and wretched sinner, Thy abject creature;
my praise also, now, in this day and hour, and every day till my last
breath, and till the end of this world, and then to all eternity, where
they cease not saying, To Him who loved us, Amen!

CHAPTER XIII--MR. PENNY-WISE-AND-POUND-FOOLISH, AND MR.
GET-I'-THE-HUNDRED-AND-LOSE-I'-THE-SHIRE

'For, what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world,
and lose his own soul?'--_Our Lord_.

This whole world is