the future, whereas in this case you demand it at once, although you are not always to be here, but for ever there. Nor are you to be judged here, but to give an account there. Supposing that a man prepared houses for you where you did not mean to stay, you would view his act as a penalty; and would you wish to grow rich in a place from which you may be called away before the evening? Know you not that we are spending our time in a foreign land, like sojourners and strangers, and that sojourners may be cast out when they are not thinking of it or expecting it. And this is our case. So it is that we leave behind us whatever we may have busied ourselves with on earth. Our Master does not allow us to take our labours with us, whether it is that we build houses, or buy estates, or slaves, or furniture, or anything else of the kind. Not only He does not allow us to go away with them, but He refuses you a reward for them. He told you beforehand that you should not build or spend with the property of others, but with your own. Why, then, leaving your own, do you labour with what is not yours, and squander it so that you will lose both your labour and your reward, and endure the extremity of punishment? Do not so act, I beseech you; but, as we are sojourners by nature, let us become so by choice, so that we may not be aliens there, rejected without honour. If we wish to be citizens in this world we shall be so neither here nor there, but if we remain sojourners, and spend our time after the fashion of sojourners, we shall receive the assurance of being citizens both here and there. For the just man, even with nothing, will be as free on earth with the common property of all as if it were his own, and when he departs hence to heaven he will look upon the eternal dwelling-places; he will neither suffer any unpleasantness in this world, nor will any man be able to make him a sojourner, who has the whole world for his city; and in taking possession of his country, he will, moreover, receive true riches. In order, then, that we may gain both the things of time and the things of eternity, let us use present goods in the right way. Thus we shall become citizens of heaven, and enjoy much consolation. May this be the portion of us all, through the love and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be glory and power for ever. Amen. I was hungry and you gave Me to eat. (_Homilies on St. Matthew_, xlv., vol. ii., p. 5.) · · · · · · ·