CAP. XVII. Everything passes away, wealth, honour, beauty, power, learning, and pleasure. Our flesh grows old as a garment and we perish. He is happy and a true king who rules himself, he is a slave (though called a king) who is subject to his own vices. Our life is so short and death comes so soon, that we ought all to prepare for our journey hence. Death comes when we least expect it, and takes away our wealth and strength, nor can any man redeem himself with gold, or move with gifts the Judge who judges all things justly. CAP. XVIII. Death is common to all, but to the good it is a cause of joy, to the evil of sorrow. The good will pass by means of death to a place of perfect peace and perfect joy, such as cannot be described or imagined. CAP. XIX. The evil-doer has a twofold death, the death of the body and the death of the soul. No words can tell the torment of that second death, which is eternal. How terrible will the Judgement be and how direful the sentence! Happy are they who shall escape such punishment. CAP. XX. Let each man remember what his condition is, and let him repent in time, turning himself to the service of his Creator. Let him submit to punishment in this life, that he may escape that which is eternal: for it is the property of God to forgive and to have mercy. CAP. XXI. Almost everyone, however, follows the lusts of his flesh and neglects the cause of his soul. The unrighteous have power everywhere, and all vices flourish. CAP. XXII. The days are coming which Christ foretold, and the signs which he predicted are visible now. God’s sentence is still delayed, in order that the sinner may have room for repentance. Hardly even a few just men are found to save the world from destruction. CAP. XXIII. Each one of the various degrees of society has departed from its true virtue, and the deadly vices have rule over the whole. Prelates are worldly, priests unchaste, scholars lazy, monks envious and self-indulgent, knights are evil livers, merchants defraud, peasants are disobedient and proud. The enticements of the world have overcome them all. CAP. XXIV. I love all the realms of Christendom, but most of all I love this land in which I was born. From other lands I stand apart and am not involved in their calamities; but this country of mine, which brought me up from childhood and in which I dwell, cannot suffer evil without affecting me: by its burdens I am weighed down; if it stands, I stand, if it falls, I fall. Therefore it is that I bewail its present divisions. One thing above all things is needful, and that is justice, with which is associated peace. If in other lands the sins of the flesh prevail, yet there they are to some extent compensated; for there justice prevails and all are equal before the law. Among us, however, not only is there carnal vice, but justice is absent; so that a terrible vengeance is being prepared for us by God.