XXVIII. He arrives at last, at the superior part of the mountain, where he beholds a beautiful, and an agreeable plain. The sweat and tears with which he watered the skirts, he finds have fertilized the summit; for here he obtains an abundant harvest, far exceeding what is produced from cultivation and prolix labour. This is hid from the eyes of the world, who, instead of considering him as enjoying a happy retirement at the top of the mountain, conclude, he is placed in an almost inaccessible and arduous station. They think he cannot enjoy an instant of repose, imagining the situation he inhabits, to be a field, where the elements engage with the utmost fury, and where the tempests rage with the greatest force and rigour. But it fares with him, as with one who scales the height of Olympus, who afterwards enjoys a climate of uninterrupted serenity, where the air is not disturbed with the most slight agitation, and where the tranquillity is so transcendent, that characters written in ashes exposed to the open air will continue legible for years together. There you always look down upon the clouds, and the fulminations burst on the skirts, without ever incommoding the eminence. At the same time, those who dwell in the neighbouring vales, conclude, if information or experience has not undeceived them, that it is ever obscured by gatherings, and continually scorched by the rays of lightning. XXIX. Just so the difficulties of life, and the storms of fortune, fall on those who inhabit the humble vallies of the world, but not upon him who has ascended the Mount of God; the fat mountain, as David calls it. But with all this, sickness, grief, loss of goods, persecution, ignominy, and other calamities, are they not common to the just, and to the unjust? and are they not in some degree acquired by the first, by silence, retirement, watching, prayer, discipline, fasting, and other penalties? It is all true, but these are clouds that are seen at a distance, and only appear on the sides of Olympus, but never rise to the top; that is, they never attain the power of inquieting the sublime part of the soul.