OF VIGILANCE.
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The shepherds are confessors, and the ploughmen, preachers. The messengers sent in pursuit of Placidus, represent the patriarchs and prophets.
TALE XXXI.
OF VIGILANCE IN OUR CALLING.
A certain nobleman had a white cow, to which he was extremely partial. He assigned two reasons for this. First, because she was spotlessly white; and next, because she gave abundance of rich milk. The estimation in which the nobleman regarded his beast, increased so much, that he constructed golden horns for her, and thought for a long time, how she might be best secured. Now there lived at that time a man called Argus, who
