“Though our own eyes,” says Sir Walter Raleigh, “do every where behold the sudden and resistless assaults of Death, and Nature assureth us by never failing experience, and Reason by infallible demonstration, that our times upon the earth have neither certainty nor durability, that our bodies are but the anvils of pain and diseases, and our minds the hives of unnumbered cares, sorrows and passions; and that when we are most glorified, we are but those painted posts against which Envy and Fortune direct their darts; yet such is the true unhappiness of our condition, and the dark ignorance which covereth the eyes of our understanding, that we only prize, pamper, and exalt this vassal and slave of death, and forget altogether, or only remember at our cast-away leisure, the imprisoned immortal Soul, which can neither die with the reprobate, nor perish with the mortal parts of virtuous men; seeing God's justice in the one, and his goodness in the other, is exercised for evermore, as the everliving subjects of his reward and punishment. But when is it that we examine this great account? Never, while we have one vanity left us to spend! We plead for titles till our breath fail us; dig for riches whilst our strength enableth us; exercise malice while we can revenge; and then when time hath beaten from us both youth, pleasure and health, and that Nature itself hateth the house of Old Age, we remember with Job that ‘we must go the way from whence we shall not return, and that our bed is made ready for us in the dark.’ And then I say, looking over-late into the bottom of our conscience, which Pleasure and Ambition had locked up from us all our lives, we behold therein the fearful images of our actions past, and withal this terrible inscription that ‘God will bring every work into judgement that man hath done under the Sun.’ “But what examples have ever moved us? what persuasions reformed us? or what threatenings made us afraid? We behold other mens tragedies played before us; we hear what is promised and threatened; but the world's bright glory hath put out the eyes of our minds; and these betraying lights, with which we only see, do neither look up towards termless joys, nor down towards endless sorrows, till we neither know, nor can look for anything else at the world's hands.—But let us not flatter our immortal Souls herein! For to neglect God all our lives, and know that we neglect Him; to offend God voluntarily, and know that we offend Him, casting our hopes on the peace which we trust to make at parting, is no other than a rebellious presumption, and that which is the worst of all, even a contemptuous laughing to scorn, and deriding of God, his laws and precepts. _Frustrà sperant qui sic de misericordiâ Dei sibi blandiuntur;_ they hope in vain, saith Bernard, which in this sort flatter themselves with God's mercy.” CHAPTER CLXXXV. EVOLVEMENTS. ANALOGIES. ANTICIPATIONS.