Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

64 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM" Good is an agent,'for it profits. That which isan agent is a body. Good moves, and in a senseorrns and contains the mind, which are properties ofa body. The goods of the body are bodies ; thereforethose of the mind also, for it too is a body. The goodof man must be a body, he being himself bodily. . . .A flame cannot be grasped, for it evades pressure.Neither is air hurt by a stroke, nor even divided. So thmind, consisting of that which is thinnest, cannot belaid hold of, nor pressed within the body, but by helpof its own subtilty escapes through what would bindit. As lightning, however widely it may have struckand shone, can come back through the finest aperture,so the mind, which is thinner even than fire, canescape through every body. . . . Heat draws outcurved beams, and their natural growth is shaped twhat our need requires. How much more easily doethe mind, being flexible and more pliant than acliquid, accept a shape. For what else is the mind buta breath under certain condition ? But you see thabreath is more shapable than any other material, asit "j_ is ' thinner. j_1 * »And the human mind or soul, so conceived, is apart of God. " You do what is very good and savingto you, if, as you write, you persevere in going to agood mind, which it is foolish to wish for, when youcan get it of yourself. There is no need to raisehands to heaven, nor to beseech the sacristan to letus in to whisper at the ear of the statue, as if wecould be better heard. God is near thee, with thee,within thee. So it is, Lucilius. A sacred spirit isseated within us, the observer and the watch over ouri^ood and our bad. As he is treated b us, so hetreats us himself. But no one is a good man without