CONSIDERATION XIV
Life is a journey to Eternity
"Man goeth to his long home." Eccles. xii. 5.
First Point.
From the beholding, that in this world so many evil-livers live in prosperity, and that so many righteous men, on the contrary, live in adversity, even the Gentiles recognised by the light of nature alone, this truth that, as there is a God, and as this God is just, so there must be another life in which the wicked will be punished and the good rewarded. What these Gentiles saw by the light of reason alone, that we, Christians, confess by faith: " Here we have no abiding city, but we seek one to come." (Heb. xiii. 14.) This world is not truly our country, but for us it is a place of passage, through which we must pass quickly to our " long home." " Man goeth to his long home." Therefore, my reader, the house in which you dwell is not your house; it is an hostel from which, quickly and when you least expect it, you will have to depart. Know that when the time of your death has arrived, those most dear, will be the first to thrust you out. And what will be your real home? A grave will be the home of your body until the day of judgment; and your soul will have to go to its long home, either to paradise or to hell. Wherefore S. Augustine addresses you: " Thou art a guest; thou beholdest; and thou passest onwards." That traveller would be insane who, passing through a country, would wish to lay out there all his patrimony in the purchase of a villa
