Deceitful Riches 1

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Earthly riches, were they valuable—yet they are not ours. Or were they ours—yet they are not true, because they are unprofitable to the soul. Nay, for the most part, our golden heaps are but the miserable spoils of precious souls.

And they are not ours, because we cannot carry them with us when we leave the world: "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?" And then you shall quickly know whose your soul shall be, which you have by those things so sinfully abused; but you shall never know whose those things shall be—which you have so miserably provided. When we awake at the last day, we shall find nothing of all those things in our hands.

Those things that are of the world (says Ambrose) we shall leave behind in the world—only virtue is the companion of the dead. Worldly things will fail us—but our good works will follow us, and abide with us forever. Would you be truly rich? be so in doing good. Raise virtues out of vanity—so shall you lay up treasure in heaven.