251Chapter LXIX.—“Not Forsaking the Assembling of Yourselves Together.”

“But if you love your brethren, take nothing from them, but share with them such things as ye have.  Feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; clothe the naked; visit the sick; so far as you can, help those in prison; receive strangers gladly into your own abodes; hate no one.  And how you must be pious, your own mind will teach you, judging rightly.  But before all else, if indeed I need say it to you, come together frequently, if it were every hour, especially on the appointed days of meeting.  For if you do this, you are within a wall of safety.  For disorderliness is the beginning of perdition.  Let no one therefore forsake the assembly on the ground of envy towards a brother.  For if any one of you forsake the assembly, he shall be regarded as of those who scatter the Church of Christ, and shall be cast out with adulterers.  For as an adulterer, under the influence of the spirit that is in him, he separates himself on some pretext, and gives place to the wicked one against himself,—a sheep for the stealing, as one found outside the fold.^10271027    There seems to be a corruption of the text here, but the general meaning is evident enough.