BIBL1A CABALISTICA
2o
for to any one, and pleasantly occupies his own time, why need he care ? the sneers of the unsympathetic "2. Besides this, the great majority of these carping critics could not do the thing half so well or so easily as he could, for his commercial
So he education and practice had made him unusually quick at figures. the and Fox the of fable old the They call retorts upon them Grapes them. unto reach cannot because sour the grapes green and they But is this so, really ? Let it is a waste of time. 3. They say themselves what they will, ask and some of my fellow-citizens despisers when the without to answer equivocation in that day perforce, have to use ? talent thou hast How put thy searching question is put, time much I have Lord in that Will not many have to say spent day, it were as been I have excess often and in drinking and carousing, by Lord I have spent whole nights over cards and a fool and a madman. Lord I have wasted my time in lewd company, talking and gambling. until the break of day. smoking, and even worse than that, often "
!
!
!
whatever else I may have says our Augsburg merchant, to confess before the great Searcher of Hearts, I can freely and gladly Lord many are the wakeful nights I have passed, and confess this "But,"
:
when
!
came
sleep
not,
then did
I
arise
and make
my
cabala.
Lord
I
!
have so learned Thy Bible by the searching out of fitting texts, that my for Thy lovingLord soul hath oft been quickened therewith. kindness and Thy mercy s sake, count these my greatest sins. There is a direct simplicity and genuineness here which must needs make us like the man. Moreover, he spoke well of our countrywomen, !
for in his catalogued paragrammata he takes the text Job what he has to say cabalistically about the English fair ones, "
And
in
all
lands
were no
women found
so
fair."
xlii.
15 for
and that
is
With such
:
a
foundation we should like to be able to see the edifice he raised to their honour, but unfortunately his catalogue of 1050 faragrammata only contains the suitable texts he chose and the subject, but not the resulting instead of cabala, except in two instances, where he uses metrical hymns Bible texts.
Our
Augsburg
citizen
and evidently very conscientious He does not tell us so, but it comes out with fair and frail ones, as Lais and
was
scrupulous as to the other sex. when he has to deal cabalistically