Compare Rev. iii. 30, "Behold I stand at the door and knock: if any man
hear my voice, and open the door, _I will come in to him and will sup
with him, and he with me."_

In the discourse written to prove that God keeps watch upon human
actions, Epictetus touches again on the same topic, saying that God has
placed beside each one of us his own guardian spirit--a spirit that
sleeps not and cannot be beguiled--and has handed us each over to that
spirit to protect us. "And to what better or more careful guardian could
He have entrusted us? So that when you have closed your doors and made
darkness within, _remember never to say that you are alone_. For you are
not alone. God, too, is present there, and your guardian spirit; and
what need have _they_ of light to see what you are doing."

There is in this passage an almost startling coincidence of thought with
those eloquent words in the Book of Ecclesiasticus: "A man that breaketh
wedlock, saying thus in his heart, Who seeth me? _I am compassed about
with darkness, the walls cover me, and nobody seeth me_: what need I to
fear? the Most Highest will not remember my sins: _such a man only
feareth the eyes of man_, and knoweth not that the eyes of the Lord are
ten thousand times brighter than the sun, beholding all the ways of men,
and considering the most secret parts. He knew all things ere ever they
were created: so also after they were perfected He looked upon all. This
man shall be punished in the streets of the city, and where he expecteth
not he shall be taken." (Ecclus. xxiii. 11-21.)

"When we were children, our parents entrusted us to a tutor who kept a
continual watch that we might not suffer harm; but, when we grow to
manhood, God hands us over to an inborn conscience to guard us. We must,