Observations placeholder

Louis Jacolliot - The Bible in India – Chapter XIII

Let us now at hazard, gather a few from the abundant legacy of maxims with which it was his pleasure to sprinkle his familiar instructions.

1. Men who have no self-command, are not capable of fulfilling their duties.
2. Pleasure and riches should be renounced when not approved by conscience.
3. The wrongs we inflict upon our neighbours, follow us like our shadow.
4. The knowledge of man is but vanity, all his best actions are illusory, when he knows not to ascribe them to God.
5. Love of his fellow-creature should be the ruling principle of the just man in all his works, for such weigh most in the celestial balance.
6. He who is humble in heart and in spirit, is loved of God; he has need of nothing more.
7. As the body is strengthened by muscles, the soul is fortified by virtue.
8. There is no greater sinner than he who covets the wife of his neighbour.
9. As the earth supports those who trample it under foot, and rend its bosom with the plough, so should we return good for evil
10.  If you frequent the society of the good, your example is useless, fear not to dwell amidst the wicked for their conversion.
11. If one inhabitant can cause the ruin of a whole village he should be expelled ; if a village can ruin a whole district, it should be destroyed; but if a district occasioned loss of the soul, it should be abandoned.
12.  Whatever services we render to perverse spirits, the good we do them resembles characters written upon water, which are effaced as we trace them. But the good should be done for its own sake, for it is not on earth we should expect reward.
13. When we die our riches remain behind ; our relatives and our friends only follow us to the tomb; but our virtues and our vices, our good actions and our faults, follow us in the other life.
14. The virtuous man is like the gigantic Banyan tree, whose beneficent shade affords freshness and life to the plants that surround it.
15. Science is useless to a man without judgment, as a mirror to a blind man.
16. The man who only appreciates means, according as they conduce to his success, soon loses his perception of the just, and of sound doctrines.
17. The infinite and the boundless can alone comprehend the boundless and the infinite, God only can comprehend God
18. The honest man should fall before the blows of the wicked as the sandal-tree that, felled by the woodman's stroke, perfumes the axe that wounds it.
19. Let him devote himself each day to all the practices of pious devotion, and submit his body to the most meritorious austerities.
20.  Let him fear all worldly honour worse than poison, and feel only contempt for this world's riches.
21. Let him well know that what is above all, is the respect of himself and the love of his fellow creatures.
22. Let him abstain from anger, and from all evil treatment, even towards animals, whom we ought to respect in the state that God has assigned them.
23. Let him chase away sensual desires, envy and cupidity.
24. Let him never be guilty of evil-speaking, calumnies, or impostures.
25. Let him have no quarrels.
26. Let his right hand be always open to the poor and the unhappy, and let him never boast his benefits.
27. When a poor man shall knock at his door, let him receive him, refresh him by washing his feet, serve him himself, and eat what remains, for the poor are the chosen of the Lord
28. Protect love and assist your fellow creatures.