f understanding. She is the continuance of
knowledge in the ease of memory, and the honour of resolution in the
effect of judgment. She plants the spring and reaps the harvest, makes
labour sweet and patience comfortable. She hath a foot on the earth but
an eye at heaven, where the prayer of faith finds the felicity of the
soul. In the fruit of charity she shows the nature of devotion, and in
the mercy of justice the glory of government. She gives time honour in
the fruit of action, and reason grace in the application of knowledge.
She takes the height of the sun, walks about the world, sounds the depth
of the sea, and makes her passage through the waters. She is ready for
all occasions, attendeth all persons, works with all instruments, and
finisheth all actions. She takes invention for her teacher, makes time
her servant, method her direction, and place her habitation. She hath a
wakeful eye and a working brain, which fits the members of the body to
the service of the spirit. She is the physician's agent and the
apothecary's benefactor, the chirurgeon's wealth and the patient's
patience. She brings time to labour and care to contentment, learning to
knowledge and virtue to honour: in idleness she hath no pleasure, nor
acquaintance with ignorance, but in industry is her delight and in
understanding her grace. She hath a passage through all the
predicaments, she hath a hand in all the arts, a property in all
professions, and a quality in all conditions. In brief, so many are the
varieties of the manners of her proceedings as makes me fearful to
follow her too far in observation, lest being never able to come near
the height of her commendation, I be enforced as I am to leave her
wholly to admiration.

PATIENCE.

Patience is a kind of heavenly tenure, whereby the soul is held in
possession, and a sweet temper in the spirit, which restraineth nature
from exceeding reason in passion. Her hand keeps time in his right
course, and her eye passeth into the depth of understanding. She
attendeth wisdom in all her works, and proportioneth time to the
necessity of matter. She is the poison of sorrow in the hope of comfort,
and the paradise of conceit in the joy of peace. Her tongue speaks
seldom but to purpose, and her foot goeth slowly but surely. She is the
imitator of the Incomprehensible in His passage to perfection, and a
servant of His will in the map of His workmanship: in confusion she hath
no operation, while she on