three springs from which all our vices flow are, as St. John says, "the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life;"[1] the desire of sensual pleasures, of worldly wealth, and of honor and esteem. Now, if I often thought to myself: I must die; in a few years, perhaps to-day or to-morrow, I shall be carried to the grave to be buried; what shall then become of my dignities, honors, the esteem of men, the favor of the great, the respectful submission of my servants and attendants? They shall disappear completely and forever. So, too, with whatever knowledge, science, skill I may have had, although I may have been as wise as an angel; death hurries all away; the bell that tolls for my funeral will wipe out all memory of me, as the Psalmist says: "Their memory hath perished with a noise."[2] Not a vestige shall I leave behind me, nor any memento except, perhaps, an epitaph which shall describe how I was once and am now no more. My dwelling shall be with and amongst the meanest paupers; my companions, my bed and my covering shall be worms and rottenness. If I thought of all this and frequently recalled it, how quickly I should free myself from pride and vanity! For it is not vanity, but rather arrant folly to give way to pride at the thought of death, as St. Gregory says: "No thought of the human mind, be it ever so proud, that does not immediately vanish at the thought of death."[3]
After the example of St. Francis Borgia. If there was ever a man in the way of being puffed up with earthly honors and dignities it was certainly St. Francis Borgia, Duke of Gandia and a near relation of the Roman emperor Charles V. The lands and people he ruled over, the ministers and attendants who had almost to worship him, the high offices he held, the great favor he enjoyed at the imperial court, all these things might indeed have given him a great esteem of himself; but death once read him a single lesson and spoke to him so powerfully, that he banished all pride out of his mind and became a miracle of humility and lowliness. Hear what occurred to him. When the dead body of the lately deceased empress Isabella, who, during her life, had been looked on as a great beauty, was brought from Granada, in Spain, the coffin was opened in order to make sure that it contained the body of the empress. When the cover was raised the body appeared so frightfully deformed and
