1840.] 



Life and Writings of Father BescM. 



285 



SUIT ^sofreSl u.cS^freofrsn'ioinLCi ^^Qm-0uj(m(rr)^<3'n'^Q(n)ecTm 



** Is it prefei'ahle to present daily the honey-dropping fruitSj or to 

 offer at once the tree with all its branches for^ said the youth, "the 

 learned say that for the devotee to offer himself and all that he pos" 

 sesseth is perfect devotion." 



0 thou who art possessed of pure knowledge^* said the old man, 

 " whether is it preferable thai a man, offering, as it were, the tree with 

 all its fruits, should dwell alone in the wilderness, choaJced with bamboos, 

 and attached only to the practice af austere penance, or that he should 

 conduct others involved in sin, in the right path 



*' O excellent man who art adorned by virtue," said the eminent 

 Joseph, is it right, that, while a man is instructing others to assuage 

 the fire of passion he himself should be exposed to be consumed by it, 

 like a man whose own house is burned while he runs to quench the fames 

 which have caught his neighbour's house 



" If thou art desirous of being where no sin is, thou must seek that 

 place in heaven ; even when retired to the wilderness, the asylum of 

 innocence, the war of the passions may still rage ; freedom from sin 

 proceeds from strength of mind, not from difference of place, O my 

 son !" replied the Sage, 



The argument is thus continued through many stanzas, the disguised 

 Angel maintaining the superiority of domestic virtues and the youthful 

 Saint extolling the virtue of retirement. It concludes with the follow- 

 ing verses. 



ar(i^LL.i—.(^Qp(S!Ssrn'isij^y^'SSt-Ci(T^iltOun' (otn/DuSsmsixipp 



*♦ Like milk mixed with water, which by diluting it decreases its 

 natual properties, or like a lamp burning before the beams of the bright- 

 rayed sun shining on high,'^ said the youth, " are all other virtues, 

 which in truth are only sound, and can these, therefore, add any thing 

 to the high eminence acquired by devotion 



