eternal and fixed, but by `things that are not' earthly life,
luxury, the prosperity that deceives, whereon, O king, thine
heart alas! is fixed amiss. Time was when I also clung thereto
myself. But the force of that sentence continually goading my
heart, stirred my governing power, my mind, to make the better
choice. But `the law of sin, warring against the law of my
mind,' and binding me, as with iron chains, held me captive to
the love of things present.

"But `after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour' was
pleased to deliver me from that harsh captivity, he enabled my
mind to overcome the law of sin, and opened mine eyes to discern
good from evil. Thereupon I perceived and looked, and behold!
all things present are vanity and vexation of spirit, as
somewhere in his writings saith Solomon the wise. Then was the
veil of sin lifted from mine heart, and the dullness, proceeding
from the grossness of my body, which pressed upon my soul, was
scattered, and I perceived the end for which I was created, and
how that it behoved me to move upward to my Creator by the
keeping of his Commandments. Wherefore I left all and followed
him, and I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord that he
delivered me out of the mire, and from the making of bricks, and
from the harsh and deadly ruler of the darkness of this world,
and that he showed me the short and easy road whereby I shall be
able, in this earthen body, eagerly to embrace the Angelic life.
Seeking to attain to it the sooner, I chose to walk the strait
and narrow way, renouncing the vanity of things present and the
unstable changes and chances thereof, and refusing to call
anything good except the true good, from which thou, O king, art
miserably sundered and alienated. Wherefore also we ourselves