When Epictetus was a boy and a slave his angry master twisted his leg
in an instrument of torture until it broke.
“Do you think,” he says after he has worked out his philosophy
of contentment, “that because my soul happens to have one little
lame leg I am to find fault with God’s universe? Ought we not
when we dig, and when we plow, and when we eat, to sing this
hymn to God, because He hath given us these implements whereby
we may till the soil? Great is God because He hath given us
hands, and the means of nourishment and food; and insensible
growth, and breathing sleep; these things we ought to hymn,
because He hath given us the power to appreciate these blessings
and continuously to use them. And, since the most of you are
blinded, ought there not to be one to fulfil this song for you,
and on behalf of all to sing a hymn of happiness to God? And
what else can I do, who am a lame old man, except sing praises
to God?”
This was the epitaph given him: “Epictetus, a slave maimed in
body, a beggar through poverty, and dear unto the immortals.”
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