This is my task, and I accomplish it; nor, so far as may be granted to me, will I ever abandon this post, and you also do I exhort to this same song." There is an almost lyric beauty about these expressions of resignation and faith in God, and it is the utterance of such warm feelings towards Divine Providence that constitutes the chief originality of Epictetus.
It is interesting to think that the oppressed heathen philosopher found the same consolation, and enjoyed the same contentment, as the persecuted Christian Apostle.

"Whether ye eat or drink," says St.Paul, "or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." "Think of God," says Epictetus, "oftener than you breathe.

Let discourse of God be renewed daily more surely than your food." Here, again, are his views about his poverty (_Fragment_ xix.):-- "Examine yourself whether you wish to be rich or to be happy; and if you wish to be rich, know that it neither is a blessing, nor is it altogether in your own power; but if to be happy, know that it both _is_ a blessing, and is in your own power; since the former is but a temporary loan of fortune, but the gift of happiness depends upon the will." "Just as when you see a viper, or an asp, or a scorpion, in a casket of ivory or gold, you do not love or congratulate them on the splendour of their material, but because their nature is pernicious you turn from and loathe them, so likewise when you see vice enshrined in wealth and the pomp of circumstance do not be astounded at the glory of its surroundings, but despise the meanness of its character." "Wealth is _not_ among the number of good things; extravagance _is_ among the number of evils, sober-mindedness of good things.

Now sober-mindedness invites us to frugality and the acquisition of real advantages; but wealth to extravagance, and it drags us away from sober-mindedness.

It is a hard matter, therefore, being rich to be sober-minded, or being sober-minded to be rich." The last sentence will forcibly remind the reader of our Lord's own words, "How hardly shall they that have riches (or as the parallel passage less startlingly expresses it, 'Children, how hard is it for them that _trust_ in riches to') enter into the kingdom of God." But this is a favourite subject with the ancient philosopher, and Epictetus continues:-- "Had you been born in Persia, you would not have been eager to live in Greece, but to stay where you were, and be happy; and, being born in poverty, why are you eager to be rich, and not rather to abide in poverty, and so be happy ?" "As it is better to be in good health, being hard-pressed on a little truckle-bed, than to roll, and to be ill in some broad couch; so too it is better in a small competence to enjoy the calm of moderate desires, than in the midst of superfluities to be discontented." This, too, is a thought which many have expressed.