''Tis not for nothing, that the word _live_, spelled backward, readeth _evil_. 'Tis like a cloud, that fantastic child of the summer, which is no sooner born, than the rays of the sun menace to make an end of him. Just so our life, _vix orimur morimur_! Our first breath is a sigh on the way to death, and the very rocking of the cradle warns us how tottering is our existence.' * * * 'Summer comes after spring; Saturday comes after Friday; four comes after three, and death comes after life. 'Life and glass, they shake and they break; Life and grass, how soon they pass! Life and a hare, how fleet they are! 'Life is certain only in uncertainty, and is like a leaf on the tree, a foam on the sea, a wave on the strand, a house on the sand.' 'Stop me not, while I sing my song before thy door. To-day red, to-morrow dead; to-day your grace, to-morrow, 'God be gracious;' to-day, a comfort to all, to-morrow, under the pall; to-day, dear, to-morrow, the bier; to-day hurra, to-morrow, psha! '_Omnes morimur!_ I have seen that we must all die; I have seen that death is a player, and a roguish one, for he bowls the men down and setteth them not up again, and attacketh not the pawn alone, but the king; I have seen, that were I to gather together the limbs of a dead emperor, and mix them up with water, they would not be of size enough to stop the mouth of sneering Michal, when she opened it to laugh at David her lord. 'Joshua, the hero, before he stormed the city of Jericho, made a vow to the Lord that none of his army should plunder aught. God knows, it's hard for soldiers to keep from it; and though they have little to do with schools, they know wondrous well, that in default of the _dativus_, they must take to the _ablativus_. Yet, spite of the ordinance, a soldier named Achan crooked his fingers, and helped himself to the booty. And lo! when he was caught, and brought before the aforesaid hero, what answered he: '_Abstuli, abscondi in terrâ, et fossam humo aperui_.' Such is the answer of Death, the great robber and plunderer of all things. Tell me, Death, where are Matthias the Emperor, and Matathias, the prophet? Where are Eleazer and Eliezer? Where are Leo and Leontius, Maximus and Maximinus? '_Abstuti et abscondi in terrâ_,' says Death!' The Pater next takes up the religious world, commencing, as usual, 'Mark! Sir Priest!' and dilateth on the importance of the office, as follows: 'What is worthier than pious and spiritual men, who have turned their backs on the world, knowing that world and wild are words that differ little in name, and none in fact. For what is this world, but a garden full of thistles; a sugared poison, a gilded dung-hill; a sack full of holes; a silver hook, a shop full of fool's-caps; a drug-store, full of nauseous purges; a flowery deceit? The apostles likened the kingdom of God to a grain of mustard-seed, not to a sugar-plum; to sour leaven, and not to sweet-meats.'