We are near an end, but before you depart, stand still a little, as
Evangelist said to Christian, that I may show you the words of God. And
first, watch yourselves well, for you all have a large piece of this
worldly-wise man in yourselves. You all take something of some ancestor,
remote or immediate, who was wise only for this world. Yes, to be sure,
for you still decline as they did, and desert as they did, those you deem
to be the weakest, and stand with those that you suppose to be the
strongest side. _The Architect of Fortune_ is perhaps too strong meat
for your stomach; but still, if you ever light upon its powerful pages,
you will surely blush in secret to see yourself turned so completely
inside out. You may not have chosen your church wholly with an eye to
your shop; but you must admit that you see as good and better men than
you are doing that every day. And it is a sure sign to you that you do
not yet know the plague of your own heart, unless you know yourself to be
a man more set upon the position and the praise that this world gives
than you yet are on the position and the praise that come from God only.
Set a watch on your own worldly heart. Watch and pray, lest you also
enter into all Worldly-Wiseman's temptation. This is one of the words of
God to you.

Another word of God is this. The way of the cross, said severe
Evangelist, is odious to every worldly-wise man; while, all the time, it
is the only way there is, and there never will be any other way to
eternal life. The only way to life is the way of the cross. There are
two crosses, indeed, on the way to the Celestial City; there is, first,
the Cross of Christ, once for you, and then there is your cross daily for
Christ, and it takes both crosses to secure and to assure any man that he
is on the right road, and that he will come at last to the right end.
'The Christian's great conquest over the world,' says William Law, 'is