Let me further invite you to observe and to admire the prevailing tone of manliness which pervades the great body of the proverbs of all nations: let me urge you to take note how very few there are which would fain persuade you that “luck is all,” or that your fortunes are in any other hands, under God, than your own. This our own proverb, _Win purple and wear purple_, proclaims. There are some, but they are exceptions, to which the gambler, the idler, the so-called “waiter upon Providence,” can appeal. For the most part, however, they courageously accept the law of labour, _No pains, no gains_,—_No sweat, no sweet_,—_No mill, no meal_,[165] as the appointed law and condition of man’s life. _Where wilt thou go, ox, that thou wilt not have to plough?_[166] is the Catalan remonstrance addressed to one, who imagines by any outward change of circumstances to evade the inevitable task and toil of existence. And this is Turkish: _It is not with saying Honey, Honey, that sweetness will come into the mouth_; and to many languages another with its striking image, _Sloth, the key of poverty_,[167] belongs: while, on the other hand, there are in almost all tongues such proverbs as the following: _God helps them that help themselves_;[168] or as it appears with a slight variation in the Basque: _God is a good worker, but He loves to be helped_. And these proverbs, let me observe by the way, were not strange, in their import at least, to the founder of that religion which is usually supposed to inculcate a blind and indolent fatalism—however some who call themselves by his name may have forgotten the lesson which they convey. Certainly they were not strange to Mahomet himself; if the following excellently-spoken word has been rightly ascribed to him. One evening, we are told, after a weary march through the desert, he was camping with his followers, and overheard one of them saying, “I will loose my camel, and commit it to God;” on which Mahomet took him up: “Friend, _tie_ thy camel, and commit it to God;”[169] do, that is, whatever is thine to do, and then leave the issue in higher hands; but till thou hast done this, till thou hast thus helped thyself, thou hast no right to look to Heaven to help thee. [Sidenote: Persian proverb.]