To purchase
luxury we have sold our ease.
Oh, Children of Israel! why were ye not content in your wilderness?
It seems to have been a pattern wilderness. For you, a simple
wholesome food, ready cooked, was provided. You took no thought for
rent and taxes; you had no poor among you--no poor-rate collectors.
You suffered not from indigestion, nor the hundred ills that follow
over-feeding; an omer for every man was your portion, neither more
nor less. You knew not you had a liver. Doctors wearied you not
with their theories, their physics, and their bills. You were
neither landowners nor leaseholders, neither shareholders nor
debenture holders. The weather and the market reports troubled you
not. The lawyer was unknown to you; you wanted no advice; you had
nought to quarrel about with your neighbour. No riches were yours
for the moth and rust to damage. Your yearly income and expenditure
you knew would balance to a fraction. Your wife and children were
provided for. Your old age caused you no anxiety; you knew you
would always have enough to live upon in comfort. Your funeral, a
simple and tasteful affair, would be furnished by the tribe. And
yet, poor, foolish child, fresh from the Egyptian brickfield, you
could not rest satisfied.
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