The happiness found in occupation is the frequent theme of the moralist, but nobody has illustrated it with more power than Luther in his Table-Talk, where he presents an image of the human mind which has always seemed to me one of the most striking in the whole range of literature. Let me give it in the strong and fibrous diction of the ancient translation from the original Latin. "The heart of an humane creature is like a mill-stone in a mill: when corn is shaked thereupon, it runneth about, rubbeth and grindeth it to meal; but if no corn bee present (the stone nevertheless running still about), then it rubbeth and grindeth it self thinner, and becometh less and smaller: even so the heart of an humane creature will bee occupied; if it hath not the works of its vocation in hand to bee busied therein, then cometh the Divel and shooteth thereinto tribulations, heavie cogitations and vexations, as then the heart consumeth it self with melancholie, insomuch that it must starv and famish."[140] That it may not starve and famish, it must be supplied with something to do; and its happiness will be in proportion to the completeness with which all its faculties are brought into activity. [140] Dr. Martin Luther's Divine Discourses at his Table, etc., translated out of the High Germane into the English Tongue by Capt. Henrie Bell, London, 1652: Chap. XXXVII., _Of Tribulation and Temptation_, p. 397. It is according to God's Providence that there should be pleasure in the exercise of all the powers with which we are blessed. There is pleasure in seeing the sights and catching the sounds of Nature. There is pleasure in the exercise of the limbs, even in extending an arm or moving a muscle. Higher degrees of pleasure are allotted to the exercise of the higher faculties. There is pleasure in the acquisition of knowledge,--pleasure in the performance of duty,--pleasure in all the labors by which we promote our own progress,--pleasure higher still in those by which we promote the progress of others.