companions observed this for a time, and marvelled that people,
pinched by such poverty as not to afford house and raiment, yet
passed their lives in such good cheer. The king said to his
chief counsellor, `Friend, how marvellous a thing it is, that our
life, though bright with such honour and luxury, hath never
pleased us so well as this poor and miserable life doth delight
and rejoice these fools: and that this life, which appeareth to
us so cruel and abominable, is to them sweet and alluring!' The
chief counsellor seized the happy moment and said, `But to thee,
O king, how seemeth their life?' `Of all that I have ever seen,'
quoth the king, `the most hateful and wretched, the most
loathsome and abhorrent.' Then spake the chief counsellor unto
him, "Such, know thou well, O king, and even more unendurable is
our life reckoned by those who are initiated into the sight of
the mysteries of yonder everlasting glory, and the blessings that
pass all understanding. Your palaces glittering with gold, and
these splendid garments, and all the delights of this life are
more loathsome than dung and filth in the eyes of those that know
the unspeakable beauties of the tabernacles in heaven made
without hands, and the apparel woven by God, and the
incorruptible diadems which God, the Creator and Lord of all,
hath prepared for them that love him. For like as this couple
were accounted fools by us, so much the more are we, who go
astray in this world and please ourselves in this false glory and
senseless pleasure, worthy of lamentation and tears in the eyes
of those who have tasted of the sweets of the bliss beyond.'

"When the king heard this, he became as one dumb. He said, `Who
then are these men that live a life better than ours?' `All,'
said the chief-counsellor `who prefer the eternal to the