with, fire, and began to blaspheme the other, and to upbraid him for being the cause of his damnation. The other awoke and changed his life. But his unhappy friend was damned; and for his damnation there is not, and shall not be, any remedy for all eternity.
SERMON XLIII. FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.
ALL ENDS, AND SOON ENDS.
" The grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven." MATT. vii. 30.
BEHOLD! all the goods of the earth are like the grass of the field, which Today is blooming and beautiful, but in the evening it withers and loses its flowers, and the next day is cast into the fire. This is what God commanded the Prophet Isaias to preach, when he said to him: ” Cry ” And I said: What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field." (Isa. xl. 6.) Hence St. James compares the rich of this world to the flower of grass: at the end of their journey through life they rot, along with all their riches and pomps. ” The rich. . . .because as the flower of the grass shall he pass away. For the sun rose with a burning heat, and parched the grass, and the flower thereof fell off, and the beauty of the shape thereof perished: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways." (St. James i. 10, 11.) They fade away and are cast into the fire, like the rich glutton, who made a splendid appearance in this life, but afterwards ” was buried in hell." (Luke xvi. 22.) Let us, then, dearly beloved Christians, attend to the salvation of our souls, and to the acquisition of riches for eternity, which never ends; for everything in this world ends, and ends very soon.
First Point. Everything ends.
1. When one of the great of this world is in the full