Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/221

 none the better but only the worse for any affliction. But the good physician, even God, healeth their minds with riches, wishing them to understand whence the well-being comes to them, and to court Him lest He part them and their wealth, and to turn their ways unto good and forswear their sins and the wickedness they once did in their adversity. Some, however, are the worse if they have wealth, for they are overweening for it and revel in it out of measure.

'Many men also are given worldly wealth that they may reward the good for their goodness and the wicked for their wickedness. For the good and the wicked are ever at odds, and sometimes also the wicked fall out among themselves. Yea, even a single wicked man is always in conflict with himself, for he knows that he does wrong, and knows what reward to look for, but will not cease from it nor even allow himself to repent thereof, and then, being in constant dread, cannot be at peace with himself. Often also it happens that the wicked man gives up his wrong-doing out of wrath at another man's misdeed, wishing to rebuke the other by shunning his ways. Then he strives with all his might, endeavouring to be unlike the other, for 'tis the wont of the divine power to work good out of evil. But no man is allowed to know all that God hath purposed, nor yet to explain what He hath made. It suffices him therein to know that the Creator and Ruler governeth all things, and rightly fashioned all that He hath created, and hath wrought no evil nor yet worketh it, but driveth away every wrong from