The Trail of a Snail

As a snail leavcih a frothy slime tipon the fairest flowers so do tmthankful persons leave their own slime upon the rich mercies of God vouchsafed to thc?nJ’’ Pining for things denied them, they undervalue favours bestowed upon them. Like Israel in the wilderness, if they cannot have flesh to feed their lusts they call even angels’ food “light bread.” By feasting to the full, and wasting their substance in luxury, many persons do more mischief with the bounties of providence than slugs and snails can do among the plants in a garden. Yet, when their festivals are over, or even while their wine is yet on the board, they grumble and murmur as if they were more hardly done by than any other men upon the face of the earth: thus a second time they besmear God’s goodness by their thankless conduct. They abuse the gift and then abuse the Giver. They climb the wall, and spurn the ladder by which they climbed; they drink, and then defile the spring; they rise upward to the sky, and then, like clouds, obscure the heavens.

My God, grant that I may never abuse thy gifts, nor even dare to use them without gratefully praising thee for them. Moses warned the Jews that the lizard, the snail, and the mole are unclean, and I would not be like to any one of them. David said concerning the wicked, “As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away.” God forbid that I should come under that curse, and so pour out my life in complaining, leaving behind me a trail of repining wherever I may move.