TO GIANBATISTA FKOM HIS FATHER. 195 



your mind and body from impediment: you cannot set 

 your body free until you free your mind from vice, and 

 shall adorn yourself with virtues. Believe me, we must 

 all begin with that, for even usurers and highway robbers 

 get the happiness they havefrom virtue usurers from care- 

 fulness and prudence, robbers from fortitude. With these 

 virtues there are vices mixed by which they are made 

 hateful in the sight of God, and of the law, and of all 

 honest men. But if in such men any good that they have 

 springs out of good, that is, depends upon some virtue, 

 how much more is it the case in others ! 



" Do not envy those, my son, who have become 

 rich or powerful through evil deeds, and are attired in 

 gold and silk. The far more opulent empire of the 

 Romans and the kings of Persia God has destroyed, with 

 many other princes, so that of all those mighty forests not 

 a twig remains. But on account of the justice of Abra- 

 ham, and because he pleased Him, out of the one twig 

 Isaac many forests have sprung that remain still, and very 

 many more would have remained, and they would have 

 been greater and more flourishing, if impiety against Christ 

 had not hindered. The shadow of God's finger glides 

 over the whole surface of the world. 



" Keep your mind sedate, and manage thus your affairs. 

 Do not lie down too late; for our race is of a warm tem- 

 perament, and somewhat subject to stone. Sleep for nine 



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