and carry us off `to a dark land and a gloomy, to a land of
eternal darkness, where there is no light, nor can one behold the
life of men.' As for that good counsellor, who made known all
the truth and taught that sagacious and wise king the way of
salvation, understand thou that I, thy poor and humble servant,
am he, who am come hither for to shew thee the good and
infallible way to lead thee to things eternal and unending, and
to counsel thee to lay up all thy treasure there; and I am come
to lead thee away from the error of this world, which, to my woe,
I also loved, and clave to its pleasures and delights. But, when
I perceived, with the unerring eyes of my mind how all human life
is wasted in these things that come and go; when I saw that no
man hath aught that is stable and steadfast, neither the rich in
his wealth, nor the mighty in his strength, nor the wise in his
wisdom, nor the prosperous in his prosperity, nor the luxurious
in his wantonness, nor he that dreameth of security of life in
that vain and feeble security of his dreams, nor any man in any
of those things that men on earth commend ('tis like the
boundless rush of torrents that discharge themselves into the
deep sea, thus fleeting and temporary are all present things);
then, I say, I understood that all such things are vanity, and
that their enjoyment is naught; and, that even as the past is all
buried in oblivion, be it past glory, or past kingship, or the
splendour of rank, or amplitude of power, or arrogance of
tyranny, or aught else like them, so also present things will
vanish in the darkness of the days to come. And, as I am myself
of the present, I also shall doubtless be subject to its
accustomed change; and, even as my fathers before me were not
allowed to take delight for ever in the present world, so also
shall it be with me. For I have observed how this tyrannical and