And thou,
Asmodai, what wouldst thou profit us were it not for Sloth and Idleness?
Where wouldst thou obtain a night's lodging? Thou wouldst not dare
expect it from a laborer or diligent student. And who, for the dishonor
and the shame, would ever give thee, Belphegor the Slothful, a moment's
welcome, if Hypocrisy did not disguise thy foulness under the name of an
internal disease, or as a good intent or a seeming despisal of wealth or
the like. She too--my dear daughter Hypocrisy--what good is or ever
would she be, notwithstanding her skill as a seamstress, and her
boldness, without thy aid, my eldest brother, Beelzebub, great chief of
Distraction: if he gave people peace and leisure to reflect seriously
upon the nature of things and their differences, how long would it take
them to find holes in the folds of Hypocrisy's golden garments, and to
see the hooks through the bait? What man in his senses would gather
together toys and fleeting pleasures, surfeiting, vain and disgraceful,
and choose them in preference to a calm conscience and the bliss of a
glorious eternity? Who would refuse to suffer the pangs of martyrdom for
his faith for an hour or a day, or affliction for forty or sixty years,
if he considered that his neighbours suffer here in an hour more than he
could suffer on earth for ever.
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