_Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity._ Let us go into a churchyard; show me now your father, show me your wife. Where is he who was clothed in gold? Where is he who rode in his chariot? Where is he who had an army at his command, he who had a treasury, and he who held a public office? Where is he who killed some and cast others into prison, who slew whom he pleased and acquitted whom he pleased? I see nothing except bones, and the moth and the cobweb; all those things were dust and fable, and dream and shadow, and idle talk and an epitaph—indeed, not even an epitaph, for we see an epitaph on a figure, but in this place not even a figure. And would that evils ended here! Now, that which pertains to honour and feasting and great name is like a shadow and idle talk, but that which they produce is by no means a shadow or idle talk. Their effects remain, and will abide with us there and be evident to all—rapacity and selfishness, fornication, adultery, and a thousand vices of the same kind. These are not in the image nor in the ashes, but both words and deeds are written above. With what eyes, then, shall we look upon Christ? For if a man would not venture to see his father if he were conscious in his own mind of sinning against him, how shall we in that hour confront Him Who is infinitely gentler than a father? How shall we bear Him? For we shall stand before the tribunal of Christ, and there will be a strict scrutiny of all things. But if anyone disbelieve in that future judgment, let him consider things as they are on earth—those in prisons, for instance, those in mines and on dung-hills, possessed men, madmen, those who are fighting with incurable disease, those who are pinched by persistent poverty, those who are mated with hunger, those who are given over to unhealable sorrow, those who are in captivity. Men, indeed, would not now suffer these things if He did not ordain that reward and punishment should await all those who have been guilty of the like transgressions. And if these men incur no penalty in this world, you must take this to yourself as a sign that there is to be something in the next after our departure hence. For He Who is the Lord of all would not chastise some and leave others, who had been guilty of the same or of worse things, unchastised, if He did not reserve a punishment for them in the next world. · · · · · · · Who is the Greater? (_Homilies on St. Matthew_, lviii., vol. ii., p. 167.) · · · · · · ·