Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/333

 things of this world may be, he must take leave of them at death. Naked he has entered into this world, and naked he shall depart from it. ” Naked," says Job, ” I came out of my mother‟s womb, and naked shall I return thither." (Job i. 21.) In a word, they who have spent their whole life, have lost their sleep, their health, and their soul, in accumulating riches and possessions shall take nothing with them at the hour of death: their eyes shall then be opened; and of all they had so dearly acquired, they shall find nothing in their hands. Hence, on that night of confusion, they shall be overwhelmed in a tempest of pains and sadness. ” The rich man, when he shall sleep, shall take away nothing with him! He shall open his eyes and find nothing... a tempest shall oppress him in the night." (Job xxvii. 19, 20.) St. Antonine relates that Saladin, king of the Saracens, gave orders at the hour of death, that the winding sheet in which he was to be buried should be carried before him to the grave, and that a person should cry out: ” Of all his possessions, this only shall Saladin bring with him." The saint also relates that a certain philosopher, speaking of Alexander the Great after his death, said: Behold the man that made the earth tremble. ” The earth," as the Scripture says, "was quiet before him." (1 Mach. i. 3.) He is now under the earth. Behold the man whom the dominion of the whole world could not satisfy: now four palms of ground are sufficient for him. ” Qui terram heri conculcubat, hodie ab ea conculcatur; et cui heri non sufficiebat mundus hodie sufficiunt quatuor ulnæ terræ." St. Augustine, or some other ancient writer, says, that having gone to see the tomb of Caesar, he exclaimed: ” Princes feared thee; cities worshipped thee; all trembled before thee; where is thy magnificence gone ?" (Serm. xxxviii. ad Fratr.) Listen to what David says:  ” I have seen the wicked highly exalted and lifted up like the cedars of Libanus. And I passed by, and lo! he was not." (Ps. xxxvi. 35, 36.) Oh! how many such spectacles are seen every day in the world! A sinner who had been born in lowliness and poverty, afterwards acquires wealth and honours, so as to excite the envy of all. When he dies, every one says: He