In olden times the difficulties of study were far greater than they are
now. Books were expensive and cumbersome, in many cases moreover chained
to the desks on which they were kept. The greatest scholars have often
been very poor. Erasmus used to read by moonlight because he could not
afford a candle, and "begged a penny, not for the love of charity, but for
the love of learning." [6]
Want of time is no excuse for idleness. "Our life," says Jeremy Taylor,
"is too short to serve the ambition of a haughty prince or a usurping
rebel; too little time to purchase great wealth, to satisfy the pride of a
vainglorious fool, to trample upon all the enemies of our just or unjust
interest: but for the obtaining virtue, for the purchase of sobriety and
modesty, for the actions of religion, God gives us time sufficient, if we
make the outgoings of the morning and evening, that is our infancy and old
age, to be taken into the computations of a man."
Work is so much a necessity of existence, that it is less a question
whether, than how, we shall work.
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