life. Shown by similes. life, shown receive eternal goods instead? The loss of a penny is a grievous one for a poor workman who has a wife and children to feed, and to rob him even of that small amount is as much as to condemn him to fast for the whole day; yet if the good man was sure of gaining two ducats for the penny, would he much regret the loss of it, or be very unwilling to pardon the thief who stole it from him? No, indeed! he would be only too glad to suffer such a loss every day on similar conditions. Take from your servant’s hand his bit of bread and cheese, and give him instead a piece of roast meat and a bottle of wine; he will thank you most heartily for your seeming rudeness in snatching the food out of his hand. We readily suffer an old coat to be torn if we hope to get a new one in place of it. Is not that so? Now, my dear brethren, what is it that we must leave behind us on earth, when we come to the end of life? The most precious thing of all that death takes from us is life, and that is very short, uncertain, and inconstant. St. James compares it to a vapor that is seen for a time and suddenly disappears: “For what is your life? It is a vapor which appeareth for a little while, and afterwards shall vanish away.”[1] It is a life of misery and suffering, as the Prophet Job complains: “Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries.”[2] But we need not dwell longer on this truth, which we know well enough already from experience.
And still less to lose worldly goods. And what else is taken from us by death? He who dies has been either a poor or a rich man. If he has been poor, he leaves nothing he need trouble about. He who has nothing can lose nothing. Has he been rich? Then, though his wealth was enormous and like Solomon he had all the pleasures of the world, he has to bid good-bye to everything; but what is that to him if he has lived piously and has a happy end? What is all he has left compared to what will be given to him in eternity? Ah, the just man will think on his death-bed when he reflects on the surpassing great reward that awaits him, and when he almost grasps it at the end of his life: Ah, if death means nothing more than leaving those miserable things in order to go to God in heaven, why should I hesitate about dying? Come, death, and strip me bare. Formerly I thought temporal goods worth a
