PRAISE-SPIRIT, THE
When Epictetus was a boy and a slave his angry master twisted his leg in an instrument of torture until it broke.
“Do you think,” he says after he has worked out his philosophy of contentment, “that because my soul happens to have one little lame leg I am to find fault with God’s universe? Ought we not when we dig, and when we plow, and when we eat, to sing this hymn to God, because He hath given us these implements whereby we may till the soil? Great is God because He hath given us hands, and the means of nourishment and food; and insensible growth, and breathing sleep; these things we ought to hymn, because He hath given us the power to appreciate these blessings and continuously to use them. And, since the most of you are blinded, ought there not to be one to fulfil this song for you, and on behalf of all to sing a hymn of happiness to God? And what else can I do, who am a lame old man, except sing praises to God?”
This was the epitaph given him: “Epictetus, a slave maimed in body, a beggar through poverty, and dear unto the immortals.” (Text.)
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PRAISE, TIMELY
Mrs. Marion Hutson indicates in this verse the desirability of praising the worthy while they are alive to appreciate it:
Sometime in the future—God knows where—
This troubled heart will find surcease of care,
And then—when consciousness has left my breast,