Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/334

 made a fortune in the world; but now he is dead, and with death all is over for him. 3. ” Why is earth and ashes proud ?" (Eccl. x. 9.) Such the language which the Lord addresses to the man who is puffed up by earthly honours and earthly riches. Miserable creature, he says, whence comes such pride? If you enjoy honours and riches, remember that you are dust. "For dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return." (Gen. iii. 19.) You must die, and after death what advantage shall you derive from the honours and possessions which now inflate you with pride? Go, says St. Ambrose, to a cemetery, in which are buried the rich and poor, and see if you can discern among them who has been rich and who has been poor; all are naked, and nothing remains of the richest among them but a few withered bones. ” Respice sepulchra, die mihi, quis ibi dives, quis pauper sit ” (lib. vi. exam., cap. viii). How profitable would the remembrance of death be to the man who lives in the world! ” He shall be brought to the grave, and shall watch in the heap of the dead." (Job xxi. 32.) At the sight of these dead bodies he would remember death, and that he shall one day be like them. Thus, he should be awakened from the deadly sleep in which perhaps he lives in a state of perdition. But the misfortune is, that worldlings are unwilling to think of death until the hour comes when they must depart from this earth to go into eternity; and therefore they live as attached to the world, as if they were never to be separated from it. But our life is short, and shall soon end: thus all things must end, and must soon end. Second Point. All soon ends. 4. Men know well, and believe firmly, that they shall die; but they imagine death is far off as if it were never to arrive. But Job tells us that the life of man is short. "Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries. Who cometh forth like a flower and is destroyed." (Job xiv. 2.) At present the health of men is so much impaired, that, as we see by experience, the greater number of them die before they attain the age of seventy. And what, says St. James,