For who was I, that thou shouldest give me a portion of thy speech, that thou shouldest promise me a reward as in it were my due, namely, a more perfect blessing of thy grace and bounty? Am I not an emigrant from my country? am I not driven away from my kindred? am I not banished and alienated from my father’s house? do not all men call me an outcast and a fugitive, a desolate and dishonoured man? but thou, O master, art my country, thou art my kindred, thou art my paternal hearth, thou art my honour, thou art my freedom of speech, my great, and famous, and inalienable wealth, why therefore shall I not have courage to say what I think? and why shall I not ask questions, when I desire to learn something more?
But nevertheless, though I say that I feel confidence, I do again confess that I am stricken with awe and amazement, and that I do not feel within myself an unmixed spirit of battle, but fear mingled with confidence, as perhaps many people will easily imagine, a closely combined conjunction of the two feelings; therefore I drink insatiably of this well-mixed cup, which persuades me neither to speak freely without prudent caution; nor, on the other hand, to think so much of caution as to lose my freedom of speech. For I have learnt to appreciate my own nothingness, and to look up to the excessive and unapproachable height of thy munificence; and whenever I know that I am myself "but dust and ashes, " or even, what is still more worthless, if there is any such thing, then I feel confidence to approach thee, humbling myself, and casting myself down to

 Exodus iv. 12. 
 
the ground, so completely changed as scarcely to seem to exist.
 Now such a disposition of the soul, Abraham, the inspector, has deeply engraved on my memory. For, says the scripture, "Abraham came near and said, Now have I begun to speak unto the Lord, I that am but dust and ashes;" Genesis xviii. 27. since then there was an opportunity given to the creature to approach the Creator, when he recognised his own nothingness.