Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/405

Rh all the while that he is thus at his devout prayers he holdeth the helm hard, he letteth down the cross sail-yard:

Thus having struck the mainsail down the mast, He 'scapes the sea, with darkness overcast.

Hesiodus giveth the husbandman a precept, before he begin to drive the plough or sow his seed:

To Ceres chaste his vows to make, To Jove likewise god of his land, Forgetting not the while to take The end of his plough-tail in hand.

And Homer bringeth in Ajax being at the point to enter into combat with Hector, willing the Greeks to pray for him unto the gods; but whiles they prayed he forgat not to arm himself at all pieces. Semblably, Agamemnon after he had given commandment to his soldiers who were to fight:

Each one his lance and spear to whet. His shield likewise fitly to set,

then, and not before, prayeth unto Jupiter in this wise:

O Jupiter, vouchsafe me of thy grace. The stately hall of Priamus to race;

for God is the hope of virtue and valour, not the pretence of sloth and cowardice. But the Jews were so superstitious, that on their sabbath (sitting still even whiles the enemies reared their scaling-ladders and gained the walls of their city) they never stirred foot, nor rose for the matter, but remained fast tied and enwrapped in their superstition as it were in a net. Thus you see what superstition is in those occurrences of times and affairs which succeed not to our mind, but contrary to our will (that is to say) in adversity: and as for times and occasions of mirth, when all things fall out to a man's desire, it is no better than impiety or atheism; and nothing is so joyous unto man is the solemnity of festival holidays, great feasts and sacrifices before the temples of the gods, the mystical and sacred rites performed when we are purified and cleansed from our sins, the ceremonial service of the gods when we worship and adore them; in which all, a superstitious man is no better than the atheist: for mark an atheist in all these, he will laugh at them until he be ready to go beside himself; these toys will set him (I say) into a fit of Sardonian laughing, when he shall see their vanities; and otherwhiles he will not stick to say softly in the ear of some familiar friend about him: What mad folk be these? how are they out of their right wits and enraged who suppose that