Three things are needful to every man; to increase his reward, through GOD'S grace helping, Who shall lead him. The first; that man be in honest work, without losing of his time. The second; that he do his work with a freedom of spirit, in place and in time, as work falls to each. The third; that his outward bearing, wheresoever he come, be so honest and fair, that praise is (given) to GOD, a stirring up of good to all who see him, as the Apostle bids: _Omnia in vobis honesti et secundum ordinem fiant_, that is "That ye do: be it done honestly and in order." FIRST PART OF THE BOOK. At the first: man shall look that he lose not his short time, nor spend it wrongly, nor in idleness let it pass away. GOD has lent man his time, to serve GOD in, and to gather grace with good works, to buy heaven with. Not only this short time flies from us, but also the time of our life, as the wise man says: "Our life-time passes away." And S. Gregory says:--"Our life is like a man in a ship; sit he, stand he, sleep he, wake he, ever he gets thitherward where the ship is driving with the force of the weather. So we, in this short time, whatsoever we do, we drive ever to our end." And our enemy, Death, follows us ever at our back, with a sharp spear to stick us through, therefore says Seneca, "life flies, death follows." And S. Augustine says "Life is nothing else but a swift running to death." Therefore, there is naught to tell by, how long man lives: save how well. Yet this short life is uncertain: wherefore says Job:--"I know not how long I may endure, and whether after a short space my Maker may take me away." And S. Gregory says: "I wot not the time I shall dwell, nor when I shall be taken hence and led to doom." And S. Jerome says:--"Nothing so much beguiles man, as that he knows not the time of his life, that to him is uncertain." And yet hopes he for long life for himself, as if he might, at his will, drive Death back. Thus was the rich man deceived of whom speaks the Gospel of S. Luke xvi. Therefore saith the psalm: "if riches increase, set not your heart upon them." For riches fail and last not with man, but glide away like a phantom. But when men have got goods together, with right, or with wrong and poor men's curses, then suddenly, they go from their goods, or else their goods from them. And Holy Writ says "The world passeth away and the lust thereof." A man that is fallen in the water, and through the force of the water is borne forth and torn from the ground; if he may get anything that has good fastening like a root or a stake, he may hinder the water from carrying him away; but by anything that fleets as he does himself, he cannot fasten himself: and soothly, willy nilly, in this life, as if in water, we are ever passing with the goods of this world; and there is naught in this world to fasten by, so that we shall not pass: for the Wise Man saith, "We shall all die, and like water slip away into the Earth." And therefore Job speaks, as if he