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FOR as you hope that you can save others also, and are eager to return
to your country with the hope of greater gain, hear also on this subject a
story of Abbot Macarius, very neatly and prettily invented, which he also
gave to a man in a tumult of similar desires, to cure him by a most
appropriate story. "There was," said he, "in a certain city a very clever
barber, who used to shave everybody for three pence and by getting this
poor and wretched sum for his work, out of this same amount used to procure
what was required for his daily food, and after having taken all care of
his body, used every day to put a hundred pence into his pocket. But while
he was diligently amassing this gain, he heard that in a city a long way
off each man paid the barber a shilling as his pay. And when he found this
out, 'how long,' said he, 'shall I be satisfied with this beggary, so as to
get with my labour a pay of three pence, when by going thither I might
amass riches by a large gain of shillings?' And so at once taking with him
the implements of his art, and using up in the expense all that he had got
together and saved during a long time, he made his way with great
difficulty to that most lucrative city. And there on the day of his
arrival, he received from everyone the pay for his labour in accordance
with what he had heard, and at eventide seeing that he had gained a large
number of shillings he went in delight to the butcher's to buy the food he
wanted for his supper. And when he began to purchase it for a large sum of
shillings he spent on a tiny bit of meat all the shillings that he had
gained, and did not take home a surplus of even a single penny. And when he
saw that his gains were thus used up every day so that he not only failed
to put by anything but could scarcely get what he required for his daily
food, he thought over the matter with himself and said: 'I will go back to
my city, and once more, seek those very moderate profits, from which, when
all my bodily wants were satisfied, a daily surplus gave a growing sum to
support my old age; which, though it seemed small and trifling, yet by
being constantly increased was amounting to no slight sum. In fact that
gain of coppers was more profitable to me than is this nominal one of
shillings from which not only is there nothing over to be laid by, but the
necessities of my daily food are scarcely met.'" And therefore it is better
for us with unbroken continuance to aim at this very slender profit in the
desert, from which no secular cares, no worldly distractions, no pride of
vainglory and vanity can detract, and which the pressure of no daily wants
can lessen (for "a small thing that the righteous hath is better than great
riches of the ungodly") rather than to pursue those larger profits which
even if they are procured by the most valuable conversion of many, are yet
absorbed by the claims of secular life and the daily leakage of
distractions. For, as Solomon says, "Better is a single handful with rest
than both hands full with labour and vexation of mind." And in these
allusions and inconveniences all that are at all weak are sure to be
entangled, as while they are even doubtful of their own salvation, and
themselves stand in need of the teaching and instruction of others, they
are incited by the devil's tricks to convert and guide others, and as, even
if they succeed in gaining any advantage from the conversion of some, they
waste by their impatience and rude manners whatever they have gained. For
that will happen to them which is described by the prophet Haggai: "And he
that gathereth riches, putteth them into a bag with holes." For indeed a
man puts his gains into a bag with holes, if he loses by want of self
control and daily distractions of mind whatever he appears to gain by the
conversion of others. And so it results that while they fancy that they can
make larger profits by the instruction of others, they are actually
deprived of their own improvement. For "There are who make themselves out
rich though possessing nothing, and there are who humble themselves amid
great riches;" and: "Better is a man who serves himself in a humble station
than one who gains honour for himself and wanteth bread."
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