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fugitive, and the future is not. The necessitous are overwhelmed with privations, the rich are satiated with abundance, the powerful are tortured with pride, the idle suffer weariness, the lowly envy, the great are disdainful. The conquerors who overwhelm nations are themselves overcome by their passions, and they only trample upon others in order to fly from themselves. Luxury consumes with its shameless ardors the life of the youth, who, when he becomes a man, is inspired by ambition, and devoured by the flames of this passion. When luxury and ambition are weary of their victim, avarice takes possession and gives an artificial life which is called wakefulness. Avaricious old men only live because they do not sleep; their life is simply watchfulness. Regard the earth throughout its length and breadth, consider all that surrounds you, annihilate space and time, and you will find among the abodes of men only what you here behold—a grief without intermission, and a lamentation which never ceases. But this grief freely accepted is the measure of all greatness; for there can be no greatness without sacrifice, and sacrifice is only grief voluntarily accepted. The world calls those persons heroic who, transpierced with a sword of grief, freely accept their suffering. The Church calls holy those who accept every grief, both of the spirit and of the flesh. Those persons are holy who, notwithstanding avaricious desires, renounce all the treasures of the world; those who, craving for the pleasures of the table, remain temperate; those who, inflamed with voluptuous desires, know how to control them and continue chaste; those who, tempted by impure thoughts, reject them and remain pure; those who attain such heights through humility that they conquer