POor Cur! How importunate is he to be imploy’d about bringing me this Glove? and with what Clamours, and how many Fawnings, does he court me to fling it him? I never saw him so eager for a piece of Meat, as I find him for a Glove: And yet he knows it is no Food for him, nor is it Hunger that creates his Longings for it; for now I have cast it him, he does nothing else with it, but (with a kind of Pride to be sent for it, and a satisfaction which his glad Gestures make appear so Great, that the very use of Speech would not enable him to express it better) brings it me back again; as he meant to shew me, he desir’d it not to keep it for himself, but only to have it in his power, to return it as a present to his Master. But he must not bring me thus an empty Glove; it is in thee, my Soul, to fill this Accident with Instruction, by learning from Religion, as dis-interess’d a Behaviour towards God, as Nature taught this Brute Creature towards me. I will in my addresses, for Externals, less earnestly implore them for the service they may do me, than for the service I may do God with them; and (as Princes Commands are look’d upon by Courtiers as Honours, and as Favours) contenting my self with the Satisfaction of being trusted, and imploy’d by Him, I will rejoyce at the liberaller Expressions of his Love, as they may be improv’d into proportionable Expressions of mine, and will beg no Largess of his Bounty, without a design of referring it to his Glory.
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