Page:SermonsFromTheLatins.djvu/513

 mates his  body,  it  is  true,  but  in  all  its  other  functions it  is  practically  dead. He lives  a  purely  natural, animal life,  with  all  the  wretchedness  of  the  animal, and none  of  its  contentment. Speaking of  such  a life  holy  Job  says:  "Man,  born  of  woman,  liveth  a short  time,  and  is  filled  with  many  miseries." For miseries come  to  man  from  the  world  through  his body; but  consolations  come  through  his  soul  from religion. But in  the  case  of  your  friend  it  is  all  misery and no  consolation. He looks  on  himself  as  a  purely material being  who  is  born,  lives  and  dies,  and  there is an  end  of  it. By his  own  admission  he  is  a  mere lump of  red  clay,  as  his  name  originally  signifies;  like the old  Pagan  philosophers,  his  favorite  flower  is  the swamp lily,  to  show  that  he,  too,  has  sprung  from the slime  of  the  earth. Sprung from  nothing  by  a process  of  conception  too  shameful  to  be  thought  of or  talked  about;  an  ordeal  which  Christ,  with  all  His humility, was  unwilling  to  undergo. A helpless prisoner before  his  birth  in  a  filthy  cell;  guilty  at  his birth of  almost  a  murderous  attack  on  the  mother that bore  him;  for  years  after  his  birth  a  little  bundle of miseries  to  himself  and  his  family. Ask the  young mother what  are  the  miseries  of  man's  earlier  years. To learn  the  ills  all  flesh  is  heir  to,  visit  the  parlors of a  dentist,  the  operating-room  of  a  hospital; count the  doctors'  signs  in  our  city,  the  thousands of diseases  and  thousands  of  remedies,  often  worse than the  diseases  themselves. The poor  envy  the affluence of  the  rich;  and  the  rich,  the  happiness  of the  poor;  every  one  thinks  his  own  station  in