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FOR the nature of this fault was admirably expressed under cover of the
following puzzle by one of the Elders in a discussion with some
philosophers, who thought that they might chaff him like a country bumpkin
because of his Christian simplicity "My father," said he, "left me in the
clutches of a great many creditors. All the others I have paid in full, and
have freed myself from all their pressing claims; but one I cannot satisfy
even by a daily payment." And when they could not see the meaning of the
puzzle, and urgently begged him to explain it: "I was," said he," in my
natural condition, encompassed by a great many faults. But when God
inspired me with the longing to be free, I, renounced this world, and at
the same time gave up all my property which I had inherited from my
father, and so I satisfied them all like pressing creditors, and freed
myself entirely from them. But I was never able altogether to get rid of
the incentives to gluttony. For though I reduce the quantity of food which
I take to the smallest possible amount, yet I cannot avoid the force of its
daily solicitations, but must be perpetually 'dunned' by it, and be making
as it were interminable payments by continually satisfying it, and pay
never ending toll at its demand." Then they declared that this man, whom
they had till now despised as a booby and a country bumpkin, had thoroughly
grasped the first principles of philosophy, i.e., training in ethics, and
they marvelled that he could by the light of nature have learnt that which
no schooling in this world could have taught him, while they themselves
with all their efforts and long course of training had not learnt this.
This is enough on gluttony in particular. Now let us return to the
discourse in which we had begun to consider the general relation of our
faults to each other.
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