emitted such a horrible odor of corruption that the pages and servants who were present ran terrified out of the church. Borgia alone remained, and filled with astonishment, thus apostrophized the dead body: “Ah, Isabella, is it thou? A short time ago thou wert well known to me; now I no longer recognize thee! Where is the beauty that people came from distant lands to see? Where the majesty that compelled every knee to bend? Where the winning countenance that formed the joy of the whole court? And is that the great empress I have served so long, from whom I have received so many favors? from whom I hoped for even still more? Has, then, death no respect for the body of such a great lady? If not, then away with the false, deceitful world! I will in future serve a greater emperor and lord, the almighty God alone, and that I may no longer be deceived by the vanities of the world, I will hide myself in some poor hut amongst the servants of the Lord.” And he carried his resolution into effect.
If we often thought of death, there would be no avarice or injustice. If I often thought to myself: I must die; in a few years, perhaps to-day or to-morrow, I shall be carried to the grave and buried; death, as Our Lord assures me, will creep on stealthily like a thief: “I will come to thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know at what hour I will come to thee.”[1] Then everything will be taken from me and I shall be completely stripped; nothing will be left to me of all the money I have, of all my possessions and revenues; I shall not be able to take a farthing with me on the journey; of all my silver plate, of all my clothes and linen, of the whole earth, nothing, not as much as a straw, will remain to me, save and except the hole in which I shall be buried; the rich man “when he shall die he shall take nothing away; nor shall his glory descend with him.”[2] Then will be seen to whom my goods belonged, and that they were merely lent to me for a time, and not given to me as their owner. Sometimes a dog follows two people who are going the same way; to whom does the dog belong? That you cannot say, for he follows both; but wait a little, till they come to a cross road and separate, then the dog will follow his master and leave the other. As long as a man is in life and has to do with the world, one might imagine that he really possesses worldly goods; but wait till he comes to the cross roads that lead to eternity, then you will see who is the real owner of his goods; for they at once leave the man who has
