But I am ashamed to see that my discourse oversteps the accustomed limits; if I consider the abundance of matters on which I have just discoursed to you, I feel that I am being borne beyond bounds; but when I reflect upon the inexhaustible wisdom which is displayed in the works of creation, I seem to be but at the beginning of my story.  Nevertheless, I have not detained you so long without profit.  For what would you have done until the evening?  You are not pressed by guests, nor expected at banquets.  Let me then employ this bodily fast to rejoice your souls.  You have often served the flesh for pleasure, to-day persevere in the ministry of the soul.  “Delight thyself also in the Lord and he shall give thee the desire of thine heart.” Ps. xxxvii. 4.  Do you love riches?  Here are spiritual riches.  “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.  More to be desired are they than gold and precious stones.” Ps. xix. 9 and 10, LXX.  Do you love enjoyment and pleasures?  Behold the oracles of the Lord, which, for a healthy soul, are “sweeter than honey and the honey-comb.” Ps. xix. 10.  If I let you go, and if I dismiss this assembly, some will run to the dice, where they will find bad language, sad quarrels and the pangs of avarice.  There stands the devil, inflaming the fury of the players with the dotted bones, The κύβοι were marked on all six sides, the ἂστράγαλοι on only four, the ends being rounded. transporting the same sums of money from one side of the table to the other, now exalting one with victory and throwing the other into despair, now swelling the first with boasting and covering his rival with confusion. With Basil’s description of the gaming tables, presumably of Cæsarea, cf. Ovid’s of those of Rome: “Ira subit, deforme malum, lucrique cupido; Jurgiaque et rixæ, sollicitusque dolor. Crimina dicuntur, resonat clamoribus æther, Invocat iratos et sibi quisque deos, Nulla fides:  tabulæque novæ per vota petuntur, Et lacrymis vidi sæpe madere genis. De A.A.iii. 373 seqq.  Of what use is bodily fasting and filling the soul with innumerable evils?  He who does not play spends his leisure elsewhere.  What frivolities come from his mouth!  What follies strike his ears!  Leisure without the fear of the Lord is, for those who do not know the value of time, a school of vice. “Cernis ut ignavum corrumpant otia corpus.”  Ovid, I. Pont. 6.  “Facito aliquid operis ut semper Diabolus inveniat te occupatum.  Jerome, In R. Monach.  I hope that my words will be profitable; at least by occupying you here they have prevented you from sinning.  Thus the longer I keep you, the longer you are out of the way of evil.