DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING A LINE. 349 



there be many that have forty times our estates, that would 

 give the greatest part of it to be healthful and cheerful like 

 us ; who, with the expense of a little money, have eat and 

 drank, and laught, and angled, and sung, and slept securely; 

 and rose next day, and cast away care, and sung, and laught, 

 and angled again ; which are blessings rich men cannot 

 purchase with all their money. Let me tell you, scholar, 

 I have a rich neighbour that is always so busy that he has 

 no leisure to laugh ; the whole business of his life is to get 

 money, and more money, that he may still get more and 

 more money ; he is still drudging on, and says that Solomon 

 says " The diligent hand maketh rich : " and it is true 

 indeed ; but he considers not that it is not in the power of 

 riches to make a man happy ; for it was wisely said, by a 

 man of great observation, "That there be as many miseries 

 beyond riches as on this side them ; " and yet God deliver 

 us from pinching poverty ; and grant, that having a com- 

 petency, we may be content and thankful. Let not us 

 repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally 

 dealt, if we see another abound with riches, when, as God 

 knows, the cares that are the keys that keep those riches 

 hang often so heavily at the rich man's girdle, that they 

 clog him with weary days and restless nights, even when 

 others sleep quietly. We see but the outside of the rich 

 man's happiness ; few consider him to be like the silkworm, 

 that, when she seems to play, is, at the very same time, 

 spinning her own bowels, and consuming herself; and this 

 many rich men do, loading themselves with corroding cares, 

 to keep what they have, probably, unconscionably got. Let 

 us, therefore, be thankful for health and a competence, and 

 above all, for a quiet conscience. 



