tion the truth of this; for who can deny that the happiness of this life is brief, that it is exposed to changes, that it leads to danger or blindness, and that it frequently ends in sin and deceit?
As to the first of these, who will say that that is enduring which at best must end with the brief career of man on earth? Ah! we all know the shortness of human life, for how few attain even a hundred years? There have been popes who reigned but a month; bishops who have survived their consecration but little longer; and married persons whose funerals have followed their weddings in still less time. These are not remarkable occurrences of the past only; they are witnessed in every age. Let us suppose, however, that your life will be one of the longest. "What," asks St. Chrysostom, "are one hundred, two hundred, four hundred years spent in the pleasures of this world compared to eternity?" For "if a man live many years, and have rejoiced in them all, he must remember the darksome time, and the many days; which when they shall come, the things passed shall be accused of vanity."[1] All happiness, however great, is but vanity when compared to eternity. Sinners themselves acknowledge this: "Being born, forthwith we ceased to be; we are consumed in our wickedness."[2] How short, then, will this life seem to the wicked! It will appear as if they had been hurried immediately from the cradle to the grave. All the pleasures and satisfactions of this world will then seem to them but a dream. Isaias ad-
