NOT A CANDIDATE.
The following well-merited rebuke by a slave to his master, shows that persons occupying mean positions in this life are sometimes superior to those above them.
A gentleman in the enjoyment of wealth, and of high social standing, and wholly given up to the pleasures of this world, knowing that one of his slaves was religious, and happening to see him in the garden near the porch of his house, called him up rather to amuse himself than for any serious purpose. When the slave came to him, cap in hand, he said, "Tom, what do you think of me; do you believe I will be one of the elect when I die?"
With a low obeisance, the slave replied: "Master, I never knew any one to be elected who was not a candidate."
The master, struck with the gentle but just rebuke of the man's answer, turned and entered his mansion, and from that hour became a candidate, living thereafter a good life.
—Belhaven.
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Every period of life has its peculiar prejudices: whoever saw old age, that did not applaud the past, and condemn the present times?
—Montaigne.