[11]
What then are we to do? Are we to use arguments in a case of this sort? We must
ask, I suppose, whether Heius was in debt, whether he had an auction,—if
he had, whether he was in such difficulties about money matters, whether he was
oppressed by such want, by such necessity, as to strip his private chapel, to sell
his paternal gods. But I see that the man had no auction; that he never sold
anything except the produce of his land; that he not only had no debts, but that he
had always abundance of ready money. Even if all these things were contrary to what
I say they were, still I say that he would not have sold things which had been so
many years in the household and chapel of his ancestors. “What will you
say if he was persuaded by the greatness of the sum given him for them?”
It is not probable that a man, rich as he was, honourable as he was, should have
preferred money to his own religious feelings and to the memorials of his ancestors.
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