hem as mine is for me,
and I am well pleased that every man do enjoy his own opinion. But so
far as they have spoken ill of me and my opinions, I do hold it a thing
of little consequence, except that I am sorry that they have thereby
embittered their own hearts.

"For this is the punishment of men who malign and revile those that
differ from them in religion, or prefer another way of living; their
revilings, by so much as they spend their wit and labour to make them
shrewd and bitter, do draw all the sweet and wholesome sap out of their
lives and turn it into poison; and so they become vessels of mockery and
wrath, remembered chiefly for the evil things that they have said with
cleverness.

"For be sure of this, Scholar, the more a man giveth himself to hatred
in this world, the more will he find to hate. But let us rather give
ourselves to charity, and if we have enemies (and what honest man hath
them not?) let them be ours, since they must, but let us not be theirs,
since we know better.

"There was one Franck, a trooper of Cromwell's, who wrote ill of me,
saying that I neither understood the subjects whereof I discoursed nor
believed the things that I said, being both silly and pretentious. It
would have been a pity if it had been true. There was also one Leigh
Hunt, a maker of many books, who used one day a bottle of ink whereof
the gall was transfused into his blood, so that he wrote many hard words
of me, setting forth selfishness and cruelty and hypocrisy as if they
were qualities of my disposition. God knew, even then, whether these
things were true of me; and if they were not true, it would have been a
pity to have answered them; but it would have been still more a pity to
be angered by them. But since that time Master Hunt and I have met each
other; yes, and Master Franck, too; and we have come very happily to a
better understanding.

"Trust me, Scholar, it is the part of wisdom to spend little of your
time upon the things that vex and anger you, and much of your time upon
the things that bring you quietness and confidence and good cheer. A
friend made is better than an enemy punished. There is more of God in
the peaceable beauty of this little wood-violet than in all the angry
disputations of the sects. We are nearer heaven when we listen to the
birds than when we quarrel with our fellow-men. I am sure that none can
enter into the spirit of Christ, his evangel, save those who willingly
follow his invitat