201. Not that this is an easy thing for any one. For what is so difficult as to discern, as though from some watch-tower, the resources of wisdom and all those other things, which to most seem so great and noble? Again, what so difficult as to place one’s decision on fixed grounds, and to despise what one has decided to be worthless, as of no good? Or, once more, what so difficult, when some misfortune has happened, and it is looked on as something serious and grieving, as to bear it in such a way that one considers it nothing beyond what is natural, when one reads: “Naked was I born, naked shall I go forth. What the Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away” Job i. 21. (he who said this had lost children and possessions), and to preserve in all things the character of a wise and upright man, as he did who says: “As the Lord pleased, so did He. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job i. 21. And again: “Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” Job ii. 10.