_Two Travellers_ of _Differing Humours_.
There were Two Men together upon a Journey, of very differing Humours;
one of them went Slugging on, with a Thousand Cares and Troubles in his
Head, exclaiming over and over, _Lord, What shall I do to Live!_ T’other
Jogg’d Merrily away, and left his Matters to Providence and Good Fortune.
Well Brother (says the Sorrowful Wight,) _How can you be so Frolick now?
As I am a Sinner, my Heart’s e’en ready to break for fear I should want
Bread._ Come, come says t’other, _Fall Back, Fall Edge_, the Resolution’s
taken, and my Mind’s at Rest. What Resolution says his Companion? Why, a
Resolution, says he, to make the best Shift I can, and commit my self to
Heaven for the Rest. Ay, but for all that, says t’other, again, I have
known as Resolute People as your self, that their Confidence has Deceiv’d
them in the Conclusion; and so the Poor man fell into another Fit of
Doubting and Musing, till he started out of it all on a sudden: _Good
Lord_, says he, _What if I should fall Blind_! And so he walk’d a good
way before his Companion with his Eyes shut, to try how ’twould be, if
that Misfortune should befall him. In this _Interim_ his Fellow-Traveller
that follow’d him, found a Purse of Money upon the way, which made good
his Doctrine of leaving things to Providence; whereas the other miss’d
that Encounter, as a punishment of his Distrust; for the _Purse_ had been
_His_, if he had not put himself out of condition of _Seeing_ it.
The MORAL.
_He that Commits himself to Providence, is sure of a Friend in time of
need; While an Anxious Distrust of the Divine Goodness, makes a Man more
and more unworthy of it; and miserable before-hand, for fear of being so
afterward._