20. What then do I mean? I am no proficient
in virtue without reward, having not attained to so high a degree of
virtue. Give me the reward of my labours. What
reward? Not that which some, prone to any suspicion would
suppose, but that which it is safe for me to seek. Give me a
respite from my long labours; give honour to my foreign service; elect
another in my place, the one who is being eagerly sought on your
behalf, someone who is clean of hands, someone who is not unskilled in
voice, someone who is able to gratify you on all points, and share with
you the ecclesiastical cares; for this is especially the time for
such. But behold, I pray you, the condition of this body, so
drained by time, by disease, by toil. What need have you of a
timid and unmanly old man, who is, so to speak, dying day by day, not
only in body, but even in powers of mind, who finds it difficult to
enter into these details before you? Disobey not the voice of
your teacher: for indeed you have never yet disobeyed it. I
am weary of being charged with my gentleness. I am weary of being
assailed in words and in envy by enemies, and by our own. Some
aim at my breast, and are less successful in their effort, for an open
enemy can be guarded against. Others lie in wait for my back, and
give greater pain, for the unsuspected blow is the more fatal. If
again I have been a pilot, I have been one of the most skilful; the sea
has been boisterous around us, boiling about the ship, and there has
been considerable uproar among the passengers, who have always been
fighting about something or another, and roaring against one another
and the waves. What a struggle I have had, seated at the helm,
contending alike with the sea and the passengers, to bring the vessel
safe to land through this double storm? Had they in every way
supported me, safety would have been hardly won, and when they were
opposed to me, how has it been possible to avoid making shipwreck?