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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 June 2022
Of Consolation to a Friend in Prison for Debt.
Dear Sir,
I am exceedingly concerned to hear, that the Severity of your Creditors has laid you under Confinement. But there is one Comfort results from it, that the utmost Stretch of their Revenge cannot carry them farther; and that when a Man is got to the undermost Part of Fortune’s Wheel, he may rise, but cannot sink lower. You now know the worst, and have nothing to do, but to support your Misfortune with that true Magnanimity which becomes a noble Mind. Long, very long, have you been labouring under great Difficulties, and so have been inured to Misfortunes; and you have looked forward with such Anxiety and Pain to the hard Lot that has now befallen you, that ‘tis impossible the bearing of it can be equal to the Apprehensions you had of it. You see all around you too many unhappy Objects reduced to the same Distress, and you see them either extricating themselves from those Difficulties, (as I hope you soon will) or learning to bear them with a true Christian Resignation. For well does the wise Man observe, that the Race is not to the Swift, nor the Battle to the Strong, nor Riches to a Man of Understanding. And it will yield you some Consolation when you reflect, that this Life is but a State of Probation, and he that meets with Misfortunes here, may, by a proper Use of them, and by God's Grace, be intitled to a blessed Hope; when a prosperous State may make a Man forgetful of his Duty, and so reap no other Good but what he finds in this transitory Life. Remember, my Friend, that the School of Affliction is the School of Wisdom; and so behave under this trying Calamity, as to say with the Royal Prophet, It is good for me, that I was afflicted.
I think myself, however, not a little unhappy, that my Circumstances will not permit me to assist you on this grievous Occasion, in the way a Friend would chuse to do, if he was able; but if by my personal Attendance on any of your Creditors or Friends, I can do you Pleasure or Service, I beg you to command me.
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