149 THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES

 

But all I could make use of, was all that was valuable; I had
enough to eat, and to supply my wants, and what was all the rest to
me? If I killed more flesh than I could eat, the dog must eat it, or
the vermin; if I sowed more corn than I could eat, it must be spoiled.
The trees that I cut down were lying to rot on the ground, I could
make no more use of them than for fuel; and that I had no occasicz
for but to dress my food.

In a word, the nature and experience of things dictated to me, upon
just reflection, that all the good things of this world are no farther
good to us, than as they are for our use; and that, whatever we may
heap up to give to others, we only enjoy as much as we can use, and
no more. The most covetous griping miser in the world would have
been cured of the vice of covetousness, if he had been in my case; for
I possessed infinitely more than I knew what to do with. I had no
room for desire, except it was of things which I had not, and they were
but trifles, though indeed of great use tome. I had, as I hinted before,
a parcel of money, as well gold as silver, about thirty-six pounds ster-
ling: alas! there the nasty, sorry, useless stuff lay; I had no manner of
business for it; and I often thought. with myself, that I would have
given a handful of it for a gross of tobacco-pipes or for a handmill to
grind my corn; nay, I would have given it all for six-pennyworth of
turnip and carrot seed out of England, or for a handful of pease and
beans and a bottle of ink: as it was, I had not the least advantage by
it, or benefit from it; but there it lay in a drawer, and grew mouldy
with the damp of the cave, in the wet season; and if I had had the drawer
full of diamonds, it had been the same case; and they had been of no
manner of value to me, because of no use.

I had now brought my state of life to be inuch easier in itself than
it was at first, and much easier to my mind as well as to my body. I
frequently sat down to my meat with thankfulness, and admired the
hand of God’s providence, which had thus spread my table in the wil-
derness. I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition,
and less upon the dark side; and to consider what I enjoyed, rather
than what I wanted; and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts,
that I cannot express them; and which I take notice of here, to put
those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably
what God hath given them, because they see and covet something that
he has not given them: all our discontents about what we want, ap-
peared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.

Another reflection was of great use to me, and, doubtless, would be
so to any one that should fall into such distress as mine was; and
this was, to compare my present condition with what I at first expected