they are taken in excess they overload the stomach and bring on an attack of illness; rest and sleep, if too long indulged in, make the head heavy and stupid; walking, hunting, dancing, playing, weary the body; carnal pleasures destroy the strength of the body and shorten life; everything else that can give pleasure to the eyes, ears, and other senses, causes only disgust if too long continued. And last of all there is death, the most disagreeable of all to the body and the senses, that dogs our footsteps every moment, and that no man can avoid, although the very thought of it is enough to terrify us. This completely destroys the body, plunders it of every comfort and good that still remained to it on earth, gives it to the worms as their food, causes it to crumble into dust, and fills the survivors with sadness and mourning.
So that it is vain to seek for happiness on earth. Shown by an example. Oh, poor mortals that we are, what a lot is ours after all! Where are we living? With reason does Job sigh forth: “Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries,” even in the brief time of his life. “Who cometh forth like a flower and is destroyed,…and never continueth in the same state.”[1] And how blind we mortals are still to love this woful and painful prison! Many would think themselves fortunate if they could always escape death and live here forever. And what weeping and wailing there is when a little child dies and is released prematurely out of this vale of tears! We seek our happiness here, but ah, we shall never find it! It will be with us as with St. Maclovius; when he was a simpleminded youth he heard that there was a fortunate island in which no one had to labor or suffer. He embarked in a ship in order to find it. He came to an island, and there found some people of a pale and sickly complexion, who all looked weak and suffering. Then he thought to himself: this must be a very unhealthy place; this cannot be the fortunate island. He went farther and, found an island of which the inhabitants had all clear and beautiful complexions, but their clothes were torn and ragged. Here, he said, the air must be good, but the poverty is great; this cannot be the fortunate island. He goes still farther and comes to a place abounding with riches; but hardly had he set foot on land when he saw that the inhabitants were engaged in a fierce battle in which many were wounded and many lost their lives. How is this? thought he. There is
- ↑ Homo natus de muliere, brevi vivens tempore, repletur multis miseris. Qui quasi flos egreditur et conteritur,…et nunquam in eodem statu permanet.—Job xiv. 1, 2.
