But he, that unto others leads the way
In public prayer,
Should do it so,
As all, that hear, may know
They need not fear
To tune their hearts unto his tongue, and say
Amen; not doubt they were betray'd
To blaspheme, when they meant to have pray'd.
Devotion will add life unto the letter:
And why should not
That, which authority
Prescribes, esteemed be
Advantage got ?
If th' prayer be good, the commoner the better,
Prayer in the Church's words, as well
As sense, of all prayers bears the bell.
And now, scholar, I think it will be time to repair to our angle-rods,
which we left in the water to fish for themselves; and you shall choose
which shall be yours; and it is an even lay, one of them catches.
And, let me tell you, this kind of fishing with a dead rod, and laying
night-hooks, are like putting money to use; for they both work for the
owners when they do nothing but sleep, or eat, or rejoice, as you know
we have done this last hour, and sat as quietly and as free from cares
under this sycamore, as Virgil's Tityrus and his Meliboeus did under
their broad beech-tree. No life, my honest scholar, no life so happy and
so pleasant as the life of a well-governed angler; for when the lawyer is
swallowed up with business, and the statesman is preventing or
contriving plots, then we sit on cowslip-banks, hear the birds sing, and
possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silent silver streams,
which we now see glide so quietly by us.
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