Practice is the motion of the spirit, where the senses are all set to
work in their natures, where, in the fittest employment of time, reason
maketh the best use of understanding. She is the continuance of
knowledge in the ease of memory, and the honour of resolution in the
effect of judgment. She plants the spring and reaps the harvest, makes
labour sweet and patience comfortable. She hath a foot on the earth but
an eye at heaven, where the prayer of faith finds the felicity of the
soul. In the fruit of charity she shows the nature of devotion, and in
the mercy of justice the glory of government. She gives time honour in
the fruit of action, and reason grace in the application of knowledge.
She takes the height of the sun, walks about the world, sounds the depth
of the sea, and makes her passage through the waters. She is ready for
all occasions, attendeth all persons, works with all instruments, and
finisheth all actions. She takes invention for her teacher, makes time
her servant, method her direction, and place her habitation. She hath a
wakeful eye and a working brain, which fits the members of the body to
the service of the spirit. She is the physician's agent and the
apothecary's benefactor, the chirurgeon's wealth and the patient's
patience. She brings time to labour and care to contentment, learning to
knowledge and virtue to honour: in idleness she hath no pleasure, nor
acquaintance with ignorance, but in industry is her delight and in
understanding her grace. She hath a passage through all the
predicaments, she hath a hand in all the arts, a property in all
professions, and a quality in all conditions. In brief, so many are the
varieties of the manners of her proceedings as makes me fearful to
follow her too far in observation, lest being never able to come near
the height of her commendation, I be enforced as I am to leave her
wholly to admiration.