drunkenness hath nothing to charge upon me, anger is afraid of me: I have won the garland in fighting against these enemies."--This, and much more, did he write in his epistles to Hermodorus, of his complaints against the great degeneracy of the Ephesians. And in an epistle to Aphidamus he writes, "I am fallen sick, Aphidamus, of a dropsy; whatsoever is of us, if it get the dominion, it becomes a disease. Excess of heat is a fever; excess of cold, a palsy; excess of wind a cholic: my disease cometh from excess of moisture. The soul is something divine, which keeps all these in a due proportion. I know the nature of the world; I know that of man; I know diseases; I know health: but if my body be overpressed, it must descend to the place ordained; however, my soul shall not descend; but being a thing immortal, I shall ascend on high, where a heavenly mansion shall receive me." A most weighty and pathetical discourse: they that know anything of God may savour something divine in it. O that the degenerate Christians of these times would but take a view of the virtue, temperance, zeal, piety, and faith of this heathen, who notwithstanding that he lived five hundred years before the coming of Christ in the flesh, had these excellent sentences! Yet again, he taught that God punisheth not by taking away riches; he rather alloweth them to the wicked to discover them; for poverty may be a veil. Speaking of God, "How can that light which never sets be ever hidden or obscured?" "Justice," saith he, "shall seize one day upon defrauders and witnesses of false things." Unless a man hope to the end for that which is to be hoped for, he shall not find that which is unsearchable; which Clemens, an ancient father, applied to Isaiah vi. "Unless you believe, you shall not understand." Heraclitus lived solitarily in the mountains; had a sight of his end; and as he was prepared for it, so he rejoiced in it. These certainly were the men who, having not a law, without them, became a law unto themselves, showing forth the work of the law written in their hearts; (Rom. ii. 14;) and who for that reason shall judge the circumcision, and receive the reward of "Well done," by him who is Judge of quick and dead. XV. Democritus would say, that he had lived to an extraordinary age by keeping himself from luxury and excess. That a little estate went a great way with men that were neither covetous nor prodigal. That luxury furnished great tables with variety: and temperance furnished little ones. That riches do not consist in the possession, but right use of wealth. He was a man of great retirement, avoiding public honours and employments; bewailed by the people of Abdera as mad, whilst indeed he only smiled at the madness of the world.