Page 19 - Book of Composition

deserts of mountains.”

And Morienus said, “you say well, my Lord. The good which now I
have, and that which I expect in time to come is all from God, and
wholly consists in his hand. And let him do what shall please him. And I
doubt not but that I shall find more rest among the company of convents,
than in the solitary mountains: but no man reaps but he that sows, and
what every man sows that he reaps. Therefore I hope that the goodness of
divinity will not leave me in the life of this world: for the entrance of rest
is very straight neither can any man enter into it, but by the afflictions of
the soul.”

Then said the king, “All that you have spoken is undoubtedly true: but
they seem to be false because they proceed from a faithless mind.”

The king spoke thus because he was as yet a worshipper of idols.

But Morienus answered: “If you grant those things to be true, which I
speak, then of necessity you must grant the mind to be true, from whence
those things proceed, for true things proceed of true things, and false
things of false thing. Eternal things proceed of things that are eternal, and
things transitory of things that are transitory. Good things proceed of
good things, and bad things of bad things.”

Then said the king : “O Morienus there are many things revealed to me
of you and of your faith and constancy; wherefore I wonderfully marvel,
that all those things which I have both seen and heard are true: wherefore
this is the cause, why I have so long desired both to see and hear you: for
I would that among certain things, of which we are to confer, that you
would teach and instruct me in certain other documents.”

Then said Morienus unto him: “O king, the Almighty God convert you to
a better mind: for I am not one to be marvelled at. I am one of the sons of
Adam: surely we proceed all of one, and shall return again to one,
although at sundry times, for the long mutation of time confounds and
changes Man who is constituted under time. Neither am I yet changed so
much as many others who have been before me. But death follows the
last mutation, than the which no punishment is judged worse, for before
the commixtion of the body and soul and after their dissolution,
punishment more cruel than any death expects the soul. But the
omnipotent Creator, who has created and framed all things of himself, is
always in our aid and defence.”

Then said the king to him: “Morienus, I perceive by these words which
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