VIII. Let no caution, my Son, appear too great, to guard you against the treacherous attacks of avarice; this serpent, whose bulk in time increases without limits, is at first no bigger than a hair; I mean to say, they commonly begin with presents of such trifling value, that the refusing to accept them would be blamed by the world as affected nicety. But what follows? Why, that when they are once admitted, by the exertion of their power in the first entrances of the door of the will, they proceed to widen it by little and little, so that every day it becomes capable of receiving more and more. God defend us from a magistrate’s setting about to enrich himself! because in such a case, he may be compared to the element of water, whose stock bears proportion to the contribution it receives; while it is a brook, it only receives fountains; afterwards becoming a river, it receives brooks; and when it arrives at being a sea, it receives rivers. IX. It is not sufficient that you keep your own hands clean; but it is also necessary that you examine those of your domestics. The integrity of a magistrate requires, that he should adopt the practice of an active and vigilant matron, who not only takes care of the cleanliness of her own person, but looks also to the cleanliness of the rest of her household. This is not only an obligation you owe to your conscience, but is likewise a matter that concerns your reputation, because it is generally understood, that the inferior part of the family is a subterraneous conduit-pipe, through which, supplies are conveyed to the hand of the master; but in truth it happens in point of regale or refreshment, as it happened to the fountain of Arethusa, which although it was received by a cavern in Greece, the place it fertilized was the land of Sicily. We read in Daniel, that the ministers of the temple are the dainties which were presented to the idol; in the house of a magistrate, the idol eats the dainties which are presented to his ministers.