Page:Rules of Life, Johan Amos Comenius.djvu/18

14 when admitted and laying all things waste, &c.; inasmuch as it is easier and safer.

4. Summarily—Forasmuch as this world is a scene of inquietudes, and we live here in a tumult of affairs, in order that as far as possible you may be free from anxiety, if not altogether tranquil, act thus:

(1.) Commune more with God than with men; let Him be your internal delight.

(2.) Attend more to yourself than to others; that is, transact your own affairs, not the affairs of others; and do you yourself take charge of yourself rather than commit that charge to others; and ﬁnally, depend the rather upon yourself than upon others. I repeat, accustom not yourself to depend upon others—mark this well. Let your industry in your own affairs, your consciousness of righteous purposes, and your conﬁdence in God be your sacred anchor.

(3.) Always pay more attention to the mind than to the body. It has been rightly said by Epictetus, "The things which appertain to the body ought to be performed incidentally; the things appertaining to the mind are worthy of ﬁxed care;" for we have the body from the earth, and it ought not to be more valued than vessels of clay, whereas the soul is from God, therefore greater (in value) than the world, and ought to be highly prized, purely preserved, and restored to God unstained. If you lose the soul, the whole world will not suffice for its redemption; therefore, let the body serve, the soul govern; to which, if you give the sceptre and allow it freely to use the body, you will become sovereign of your own actions, and numberless troubles that commonly arise from excessive care of the body, will be diminished to you.

These are the methods of true tranquillity, which if you adopt, nothing will easily disturb you through your own fault. Whatever evil may arise from another, or from the sufferance of God, who rarely permits his own to be