I think you would say. And it was
no marvel. For some such have I known, too, but they have hid their
goods foolishly in such place as they were well warned before that
they should not. And that were they warned by him whom they well
knew for such a one as knew well enough what would come of it.

VINCENT: Then were they more than mad. But did he tell them too
where they should have hid it, to make it sure?

ANTHONY: Yea, by St. Mary, did he! For else he would have told
them but half a tale. But he told them a whole tale, bidding them
that they should in no wise hide their treasure in the ground. And
he showed them a good cause, for there thieves dig it out and steal
it away.

VINCENT: Why, where should they hide it, then, said he? For
thieves may hap to find it out in any place.

ANTHONY: Forsooth, he counselled them to hide their treasure in
heaven and there lay it up, for there it shall lie safe. For
thither, he said, there can no thief come, till he have left his
theft and become a true man first. And he who gave this counsel
knew well enough what he said, for it was our Saviour himself, who
in the sixth chapter of St. Matthew saith, "Hoard not up your
treasures in earth, where the rust and the moth fret it out and
where thieves dig it out and steal it away. But hoard up your
treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor the moth fret them
out, and where thieves dig them not out nor steal them away. For
where thy treasure is, there is thine heart too."

If we would well consider these words of our Saviour Christ,
methinketh we should need no more counsel at all, nor no more
comfort either, concerning the loss of our temporal substance in
this Turk's persecution for the faith. For here our Lord in these
words teacheth us where we may lay up our substance safe, before
the persecution come. If we put it into the poor men's bosoms,
there shall it lie safe, for who would go search a beggar's bag for
money? If we deliver it to the poor for Christ's sake, we deliver
it unto Christ himself. And then what persecutor can there be, so
strong as to take it out of his hand?

VINCENT: These things, uncle, are undoubtedly so true that no man
can with words wrestle therewith. But yet ever there hangeth in a
man's heart a lothness to lack a living!

[YOU ARE HERE]

ANTHONY: There doth indeed, in theirs who either never or but
seldom hear any good counsel against it, or who, when they hear it,
hearken to it but as