8.  I will not, however, omit to tell you, my dear friend, in what a state I have been.  Last year I suffered from a very violent fever, and came near to the gates of death.  When, by God’s mercy, I was restored, I was distressed at coming back to life, as I bethought me of all the troubles before me.  I considered with myself for what reason, hidden in the depths of the wisdom of God, yet further days of life in the flesh had been allowed me.  But when I heard of these matters I concluded that the Lord wished me to see the Churches at rest after the storm which they had previously suffered from the alienation of the men in whom, on account of their fictitious gravity of character, every confidence had been placed.  Or peradventure the Lord designed to invigorate my soul, and to render it more vigilant for the future, to the end that, instead of giving heed to men, it might be made perfect through those precepts of the Gospel which do not share in the changes and chances of human seasons and circumstances, but abide for ever the same, as they were uttered by the blessed lips that cannot lie. Contrast the famous appeal of Antigone in Soph., Ant. 454 to the eternal principles of right and wrong; οὐ γάρ τι νῦν γε καχθὲς, ἀλλ᾽ ἀεί ποτε ζῆ ταῦτα κοὐδεὶς οἶδεν ἐξ ὅτου ᾽φάνη.  The Christian saint can make the more personal reference to the ἀψευδὲς στόμα.