contentment, which is inestimable wealth. If the rich man would throw
money into your lap, consider not yourself obliged to him, for I have
often heard that the patience of the poor is preferable to the
liberality of the rich."

Muezzins, who call the faithful to prayer at the prescribed hours from
the minarets of the mosques, are generally blind men, as a man with his
eyesight might spy into the domestic privacy of the citizens, who sleep
on the flat roofs of their houses in the hot season, and are selected
for their sweetness of voice. Saádí, however, tells us of a man who
performed gratuitously the office of muezzin, and had such a voice as
disgusted all who heard it. The intendant of the mosque, a good, humane
man, being unwilling to offend him, said one day: "My friend, this
mosque has muezzins of long standing, each of whom has a monthly stipend
of ten dínars. Now I will give you ten dínars to go to another place."
The man agreed to this and went away. Some time after he came to the
intendant and said: "O, my lord, you injured me in sending me away from
this station for ten dínars; for where I went they will give me twenty
dínars to remove to another place, to which I have not consented." The
intendant laughed, and said: "Take care--don't accept of the offer, for
they may be willing to give you fifty."

To those who have "music in their souls," and are "moved by concord of
sweet sounds," the tones of a harsh voice are excruciating; and if among
our statesmen and other public speakers "silver tongues" are rare, they
are much more so among our preachers. The Church of Rome does not admit
into the priesthood men who have any bodily shortcoming or defect; it
would also be well if all candidates for holy orders in the English and
Scottish Churches whose voices are not at least tolerable were rejected,
as unfit to preach! Saádí seems to have had a great horror of braying