The Laughable Stories Collected by Mar Gregory John

[The following verses are not found in the India
Office MS.]
EXHORTATION TO A LIFE OF EXCELLENCE.
As a mourner weeping thou didst enter the world on
the day of thy birth,
Though thou didst bring joy and laughter to thy kinsfolk;
Take care that thou art joyful and innocent on the day
of thy death,
When they are weeping and wailing by reason of thy 5
departure.
THE WORTHLESSNESS OF [tHIs] FLEETING LIFE.
The [days of] mens lives are few and evil, as hath
been said,
And are for the most part, [full of] toil, and pain, and
suffering, and disgrace.
Childhood hath [its] faults and stripes of correction;
And manhood its fatiguing passions and goadings of lo
the flesh;
And in old age sickness and pain wear [a man] to
nothing.
Then, straightway, death snatcheth [him] away to the
storehouse of the grave,
And, behold, there are for him henceforth either the
awful judgment, and the fiery furnace,
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