I
entertained different notions of things. I looked now upon the
world as a thing remote, which I had nothing to do with, no
expectations from, and, indeed, no desires about: in a word, I had
nothing indeed to do with it, nor was ever likely to have, so I
thought it looked, as we may perhaps look upon it hereafter - viz.
as a place I had lived in, but was come out of it; and well might I
say, as Father Abraham to Dives, "Between me and thee is a great
gulf fixed."
In the first place, I was removed from all the wickedness of the
world here; I had neither the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the
eye, nor the pride of life. I had nothing to covet, for I had all
that I was now capable of enjoying; I was lord of the whole manor;
or, if I pleased, I might call myself king or emperor over the
whole country which I had possession of: there were no rivals; I
had no competitor, none to dispute sovereignty or command with me:
I might have raised ship-loadings of corn, but I had no use for it;
so I let as little grow as I thought enough for my occasion. I had
tortoise or turtle enough, but now and then one was as much as I
could put to any use: I had timber enough to have built a fleet of
ships; and I had grapes enough to have made wine, or to have cured
into raisins, to have loaded that fleet when it had been built.
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