Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 2 Oldfather 1928.djvu/291

 you not willing, then, for so long as has been given you, to be a spectator of His pageant and His festival, and then when He leads you forth, to go, after you have made obeisance and returned thanks for what you have heard and seen? "No," you say, "but I wanted to go on with the holiday." Yes, and so do the initiates in the mysteries want to go on with the initiation, and no doubt the spectators at Olympia want to see still other athletes; but the festival has come to an end; leave, depart as a grateful and reverent spectator departs; make room for others; yet others must be born, even as you were born, and once born they must have land, and houses, and provisions. But if the first-comers do not move along, what is left for those who follow after? Why are you insatiate? Why never satisfied? Why do you crowd the world?

Yes, but I want my little children and my wife to be with me.—Are they yours? Do they not belong to Him who gave them? To Him who made your Will you not, therefore, give up what is not your own? Will you not yield to your superior?—Why, then, did He bring me into the world on these conditions?—And if they do not suit you, leave; God has no need of a fault-finding spectator. He needs those who join in the holiday and the dance, that they may applaud rather, and glorify, and sing hymns of praise about the festival. But the peevish and the cowardly He will not be distressed to see left out of the festival; for when they were present they did not act as though they were on a holiday, nor did they fill the proper rôle; but they were distressed, found fault with the Deity, with fate, and with the company; insensible to what had been 281