If a slave is always dumb,
He is scarcely worth a crumb:
Let him, freely told, boldly speak.

II. When then has a slave freedom of speech towards his
master? Is it not when he is conscious that he has not
wronged him, but that he has done and said everything with a
view to the advantage of his owner? When therefore is it
proper for the servant of God to use freedom of speech to the
ruler and master of himself, and of the whole word? Is it
not when he is free from all sins, and is aware in his con-
science that he loves his master, feeling more joy at the fact
of being a servant of God, than he would if he were sovereign
over the whole race of mankind, and were invested without
any effort on his part with the supreme authority over land
and sea. And he mentions the ministrations and services by
which Abraham displayed his love to his master in the last
sentence of the divine oracle given to his son, "I will give to
thee and to thy seed all this land, and in thy seed shall all the
nations of the earth be blessed, because Abraham thy father
obeyed my voice, and kept all my precepts, and all my com-
mandments, and my laws, and my judgments." ^* And it is the
greatest possible praise of a servant that he does not neglect
a single thing of the commandments which his master lays
upon him, but that he labours earnestly without any hesitation
and with all his vigour, and even beyond his power to perform
them all with a well affected mind.

III. There are persons, then, to whom it is becoming to listen
but not to speak, with respect to whom it is said, "Be silent
and hear," ^† a very admirable injunction; for ignorance is a
very bad and a very audacious thing, the first remedy for
which is silence, and the second, attention to those who pre-
sent you with anything worthy of your listening to. Let no
one, however, think that this is all that is signified by those
few words, "Be silent and hear;" but that there is also some-
thing greater in them which may give a lesson to any one.
For these words do not recommend you only to be silent with
your tongues, and to hear with your ears, but also to conduct
yourself thus in both these respects in your soul; for many
persons when they have come to listen to some one, have
nevertheless not come with their minds, but wander outside,

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