"
"'A living dog is better than a dead lion,' says the wise man. Besides,
it is apresumingon His providence, when He opens away for our escape,
and we, of our own wilfulness and folly, neglect the blessing. 'Do
thyself no harm.' Provide for thine own life, and run not as the horse
and mule, that have no understanding, into the very throat of thine
enemies, and them that seek thine hurt."
The first speaker was a man of plain but comely appearance, habited in a
coarse doublet buckled about the waist with a leathern girdle. A round
woollen cap, from beneath which a few straight-combed locks hung about
his face, gave a quaint and precise aspect to his figure. His features,
though slightly wrinkled, did not betoken either age or infirmity: but
his whole appearance indicated a robust and vigorous frame, capable both
of exertion and endurance. The other individual exhibited a more
ungainly form and deportment. He had not the same look of benevolence
and good-will to man which irradiated the features of the first, of whom
it might be truly said, that his inward affections did mould and
constrain his outward image into their resemblance, so that meekness and
benignity shone through his countenance from the ever-glowing spirit of
love and Christian charity within.
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