First, Trust not in them for help. Thou art miserably mistaken, if thou lookest for this in gold or silver. These are no more able to set thee _above the world_, than to set thee above the devil. Know that both the world and the prince of this world laugh at all such preparations against them. These will little avail in the day of trouble: even if they remain in the trying hour. But it is not certain, that they will: for how oft do they _make themselves wings and fly away_? But if not, what support will they afford, even in the ordinary troubles of life? The desire of thy eyes, the wife of thy youth, thy son, thine only son, or the friend which was as thy own soul, is taken away at a stroke. Will thy riches re-animate the breathless clay, or call back its late inhabitant?――Will they secure thee from sickness, diseases, pain? Do these visit the poor only? Nay; he that feeds thy flocks or tills thy ground, has less sickness and pain than thou. He is more rarely visited by these unwelcome guests: and if they come there at all, they are more easily driven away from the little cot, than from the cloud-topt palaces. And during the time that thy body is chastened with pain, or consumes away with pining sickness, how do thy treasures help thee? Let the poor Heathen answer. _Ut lippum pictæ tabulæ, fomenta podagrum, Auriculas citharæ collecta forde dolentes._ 19. *But there is at hand a greater trouble than all these. _Thou_ art to die. _Thou_ art to sink into dust; to return to the ground from which thou wast taken, to mix with common clay. _Thy_ body is to go to the earth as it was, while thy spirit returns to God that gave it. And the time draws on: the years slide away with a swift tho’ silent pace. Perhaps your day is far spent: the noon of life is past, and the evening shadows begin to rest upon you. You feel in yourself sure-approaching decay. The springs of life wear away apace. Now what help is there in your riches? Do they sweeten death? Do they endear that solemn hour? Quite the reverse. _O death how bitter art thou, to a man that liveth at rest in his possessions?_ How unacceptable to him is that awful sentence, _This night shall thy soul be required of thee_!――Or will they prevent the unwelcome stroke, or protract the dreadful hour? Can they deliver your soul that it should not see death? Can they restore the years that are past? Can they add to your appointed time, a month, a day, an hour, a moment?――Or will the good things you have chosen for your portion here, follow you over the great gulf? Not so: naked came you into this world; naked must you return. _Linquenda tellus, & domus & placens Uxor: nec harum quas seris arborum Te præter invisam cupressum, Ulla brevem dominum sequetur!_