134 



Ghazzali's Alchemy of Happiness. 



filled up with grains of mustard seed, and if a crow should 

 make use of them as food and come but once in a thousand 

 years and take but a single grain away, so that with the 

 lapse of time there should not remain a single grain, still 

 at the end of that time not the amount of a grain of mus- 

 tard seed would have been diminished from the duration 

 of eternity. 



Beware, therefore, beloved of exposing yourself to eter- 

 nal torments; call to mind the great risk and danger you 

 are to encounter in the future world : address to your soul 

 serious admonitions, before you come to be ashamed and 

 fall into captivity and chastisement : ask your soul, saying, 

 " rebellious soul, how much misery thou dost undergo 

 for the sake of gaining the world ! What long and distant 

 journeys thou dost undertake, how often dost thou remain 

 hungry and thirsty, notwithstanding thou are both transi- 

 tory thyself and all thou dost gain is transitory ; and yet 

 all this time God himself has engaged to supply all your 

 needs. But on the other hand what hast thou done to se- 

 cure eternal salvation in the mansions of the future world, 

 to be delivered from misery and reach unchanging felicity ? 

 If thou art not able to endure the least pain or toil for re- 

 ligion in this world, how wilt thou be able to bear in the 

 future world both material and spiritual torments, together 

 with the torments of the imagination ?" 



Every man ought to take as the subject of his thoughts, 

 the things which concern the future state, — the pains of 

 its torments, the joys of its felicity, the delight and ecstasy 

 of the vision of the beauty of the Lord, and finally the fact 

 that these states are eternal. Now, is it not strange folly 

 and sottishuess to be proud of the transitory pleasures of 

 the world in a life which lasts but for one or two days, and 

 to turn our backs upon future eternal joys? If you are 

 wise you will acknowledge the frailly and errors of your 

 soul, and with an understanding of the purpose for which 



