There’s No Wealth like That which comes by the Blessing of God upon
Honest Labour and Warrantable Industry. Here’s an Incitement to an
Industrious Course of Life, by a Consideration of the Profit, the
Innocence and the Virtue of such an Application. There is one Great
Comfort in Hand, beside the Hope and Assurance of more to come. The very
Exercise procures us Health, and Consequently All the Pleasures and
Satisfactions that Attend it. We have the Delight of Seeing and Reaping
the Fruit of our own Labour, and the Inward Joy of Contemplating the
Benedictions of Another World, that shall be superadded to the Advantages
of This. _Æsop_ very well understood, that Naked Lessons and Precepts,
have Nothing the Force that Images and Parables have, upon our Minds and
Affections: Beside, that the very Study to Unriddled a Mystery, furnishes
the Memory with more Tokens to Remember it by. A Tale in Emblem sinks
Deeper, where the Life and Spirit of it is Insinuated by a kind of Biass
and Surprize. It was a Touch of Art in the _Father_ to Cover his Meaning
in such a manner, as to Create a Curiosity, and an Earnest Desire in
his _Sons_ to find it out. And it was also a Treble Advantage to them
besides; for there was, I say, _Health_ in the _Exercise_, _Profit_ in
the _Discovery_, and the Comfort of a _Good Conscience_ in Discharging
the Duty of a _Filial Obedience_.