More Thomas - Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation

Project Gutenberg's Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, by Thomas More

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Title: Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens

Author: Thomas More

Translator: Monica Stevens

Release Date: November 16, 2005 [EBook #17075]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIALOGUE OF COMFORT ***

Produced by David McClamrock

by St. Thomas More

with modifications to obsolete language by Monica Stevens

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This edition of the Dialogue of Comfort has been transcribed fromthe 1557 version as it appears in Everyman's Library. The Everymanedition is heartily recommended to readers who would like to tastethe dialogue in its original form.

The first plan was to change only the spelling. It soon becameevident that the punctuation would have to be changed to followpresent usage. The longest sentences were then broken up into twoor three, and certain others were rearranged into a word ordermore like that of today. Nothing was omitted, however, and nothingwas added except relative pronouns, parts of "to be," and othersuch neutral connectives. Finally, obsolete words were changed tomore familiar equivalents except when they were entirely clear andtoo good to lose. Thus "wot" became "know" but "gigglot" and "galpup the ghost" were retained. Words that have come to have a quitedifferent meaning for us, such as "fond" and "lust" were replacedby less ambiguous oneswherever possible, by ones that Morehimself used elsewhere.

The text has not been cut or expanded, re-interpreted or edited.Any transcription seems to involve some interpretation, consciousor otherwise, but an effort has been made to keep it to a minimum.Passages that seemed to make no sense have therefore been leftunaltered. If other readers find solutions for them theirsuggestions will be welcomed.

This is not in any sense a scholarly piece of work. That wouldrequire a very different method, as well as a far more thoroughknowledge of sixteenth-century English. It would be a mostcommendable undertaking, but it might result in an edition for thelearned. This one is for everyone who has the two essentials,faith and intelligence, presupposed by Anthony in Chapter II.

Middlebury, Vermont.
Feast of St. Benedict, 1950.

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VINCENT: Who would have thought, O my good uncle, a few yearspast, that those in this country who would visit their friendslying in disease and sickness would come, as I do now, to seek andfetch comfort of them? Or who would have thought that in givingcomfort to them they would use the way that I may well use to you?For albeit that the priests and friars be wont to call upon sickmen to remember death, yet we worldly friends, for fear ofdiscomforting them, have ever had a way here in Hungary of liftingup their hearts and putting them in good hope of life.

But now, my good uncle, the world is here waxed such, and so greatperils appear here to fall at hand, that methinketh the greatestcomfort a man can have is when he can see that he shall soon begone. And we who are likely long to live here in wretchedness haveneed of some comforting counsel against tribulation to be given usby such as you, good uncle. For you have so long lived virtuously,and are so learned in the law of God that very few are better inthis country. And you have had yourself good experience and assayof such things as we do now fear, as one who hath been takenprisoner in Turkey two times in your days, and is now likely todepart hence ere long.

But that may be your great comfort, good uncle, since you depart toGod. But us of your kindred shall you leave here, a company ofsorry comfortless orphans. For to all of us your good help,comfort, and counsel hath long been a great staynot as an uncleto some, and to others as one further of kin, but as though to usall you had been a natural father.

ANTHONY: Mine own good cousin, I cannot much deny but what thereis indeed, not only here in Hungary but also in almost all placesin Christendom, such a customary manner of unchristian comforting.And in any sick man it doth more harm than good, by drawing him intime of sickness, with looking and longing for life, from themeditation of death, judgment, heaven, and hell, with which heshould beset much of his timeeven all his whole life in his besthealth. Yet is that manner of comfort to my mind more than mad whenit is used to a man of mine age. For as we well know that a youngman may die soon, so are we very sure that an old man cannot livelong. And yet there is (as Tully saith) no man so old but that, forall that, he hopeth yet that he may live one year more, and of afrail folly delighteth to think thereon and comfort himselftherewith. So other men's words of such comfort, adding more sticksto that fire, shall (in a manner) quite burn up the pleasantmoisture that should most refresh himthe wholesome dew, I mean,of God's grace, by which he should wish with God's will to behence, and long to be with him in Heaven.

Now, as for your taking my departing from you so heavily (as thatof one from whom you recognize, of your goodness, to have had herebefore help and comfort), would God I had done to you and to othershalf so much as I myself reckon it would have been my duty to do!But whensoever God may take me hence, to reckon yourselves thencomfortless, as though your chief comfort stood in methereinwould you make, methinketh, a reckoning very much as though youwould cast away a strong staff and lean upon a rotten reed. For Godis, and must be, your comfort, and not I. And he is a surecomforter, who (as he said unto his disciples) never leaveth hisservants comfortless orphans, not even when he departed from hisdisciples by death. But he both sent them a comforter, as he hadpromised, the Holy Spirit of his Father and himself, and he alsomade them sure that to the world's end he would ever dwell withthem himself. And therefore, if you be part of his flock andbelieve his promise, how can you be comfortless in any tribulation,when Christ and his Holy Spirit, and with them their inseparableFather, if you put full trust and confidence in them, are nevereither one finger-breadth of space nor one minute of time from you?

VINCENT: O, my good uncle, even these selfsame words, with whichyou prove that because of God's own gracious presence we cannot beleft comfortless, make me now feel and perceive how much comfort weshall miss when you are gone. For albeit, good uncle, that whileyou tell me this I cannot but grant it for true, yet if I had notnow heard it from you, I would not have remembered it, nor would ithave fallen to my mind. And moreover, as our tribulations shallincrease in weight and number, so shall we need not only one suchgood word or twain, but a great heap of them, to stable andstrengthen the walls of our hearts against the great surges of thistempestuous sea.

ANTHONY: Good cousin, trust well in God and he shall provide yououtward teachers suitable for every time, or else shall himselfsufficiently teach you inwardly.

VINCENT: Very well, good uncle, but yet if we would leave theseeking of outward learning, when we can have it, and look to beinwardly taught by God alone, then should be thereby tempt God anddisplease him. And since I now see the likelihood that when you aregone we shall be sore destitute of any other like you, thereforemethinketh that God bindeth me of duty to pray you now, good uncle,in this short time that we have you, that I may learn of you suchplenty of good counsel and comfort, against these great storms oftribulation with which both I and all mine are sore beaten already,and now upon the coming of this cruel Turk fear to fall in farmore, that I may, with the same laid up in remembrance, govern andstay the ship of our kindred and keep it afloat from peril ofspiritual drowning.