me. Give me that resignation which I ought to have. " Here burn here cut; " chastise me in this life, that in the other life I may love Thee for all eternity.
Third Point.
" The time is short; ... it remaineth that . . . they that use this world as not abusing it; for the fashion of this world passeth away." (i Cor. vii. 29-31.) For what else is our life upon this earth, save a scene which passes and quickly ends? " The fashion of this world passeth away; " the fashion that is, a scene, a play. Cornelius a Lapide says that " the world is like a stage, a generation passes away, a generation comes. He who plays the king does not take the people away with him. Tell me, O villa, O house, how many masters you have had? " When the play is finished, he who played the king is no longer a king; the master is no longer a master. Now thou possessest this villa or that palace, but death will come, and there will be other masters.
" The affliction of an hour maketh one forget great delights." (Ecclus. xi. 29.) The fatal hour of death makes all the pomps and the nobility, and the pageants of the world, to be forgotten, and to be at an end. Cassimir, King of Poland, one day whilst sitting at table with the grandees of his kingdom, raising to his lips the cup to drink, died, and the scene closed for him. Celsus, the Emperor, at the commencement of the seventh day of his election, was slain, and the scene closed for him. Landislaus, King of Bohemia, a young man of eighteen years of age, whilst expecting his bride, the daughter of the King of France, and a splendid feast was being prepared, one morning was stricken with pain, and died; whereupon couriers were quickly despatched to the bride, to advise her to return to France, since the scene had closed for Landislaus. This thought of the vanity of the world made a saint of S. Francis Borgia who, (as already has been mentioned,) at the sight of the Empress Isabella, dead in the midst of her splendour, and in the
