The first is that the pleasures of this world are so fleeting and uncertain that it is not worth while for us to take any pains to secure them. We can only hold them for a little while at the most; they are like the treasures which one sometimes possesses in a dream and which melt away in the hands on waking. A moment after death it will make no difference to us whether we have had them or not; they will seem to have been possessed only as in a dream when we wake to the reality of the next world. {24} "They have slept their sleep," says the Psalmist, "and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands." The life of one who makes pleasure his object is like a sleep; and, as St. Paul warns us in the Epistle of to-day, "it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed." Our real salvation, the only life which is really worth enjoying, is coming very soon. This life is only a season of Advent to prepare for that eternal festival to which we have been invited by the King of kings. So, as our first conclusion is that it is not worth while to seek for the pleasures of this life, our second is that it is not a matter for great grief if we have pain and affliction in it. One would not mind suffering for a day, or even for a week, if the rest of only this short mortal life was to be passed in uninterrupted enjoyment. So, if it be the will of God, perhaps we can manage to pass a few years in pain and sorrow, with the promise, which will not fail us, of happiness that shall be eternal. Especially when we remember that pain and sorrow in this life make that promise all the more sure. "Blessed are ye poor," says our Lord, "for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. ... Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." "Behold," he says, "I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to every man according to his works." {25} Let this, then, be our care, not to seek pleasure nor to avoid pain which shall soon pass away, but so to live that we shall be anxious to meet him and have a well-grounded hope of receiving that reward; that when he says, "Surely I come quickly," we may be able to answer with the apostle, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus." For that life is the best in which one is most willing and ready to die; in which one hears most gladly that this heaven and this earth shall pass away. ------------- {26} _Second Sunday of Advent_ Epistle. _Romans xv._ 4-13.