upon us, and make us feel that
his love for us has grown cold. No, never, never. Never will there
come a day when His divine beauty will fade away, or when he will
lose his power of making us happy, as is the case with the creatures
that now surround us; and therefore we shall never see the day when
our happiness will change, or cease to exist.

But there is still more. Not only is God immutable, and therefore
unable to change in our regard, but all the companions of our bliss
have also become immutable in their love for us. Hence, there never
will come a day then we shall see ourselves despised and even hated
by our fellow-creatures, as so often happens in this world. All those
defects which now make us so unamiable will be totally removed by
our union with God, and no one will ever see anything in us but
what is good and deserving of love. From this it follows, that
even the happiness which comes to the blessed from creatures is
permanent--eternal.

3. Let us now pass to the third defect of all earthly happiness. Even
if both we and the objects which make us happy were immutable, our
blessedness could not be lasting, because death, inexorable death,
must eventually tear us away from them, or tear them away frown us.
All earthly happiness, glory, and greatness end in death. "And as it
is appointed unto men once to die,"* it follows that all, both great
and small, must eventually see the end of all that makes life bright
and desirable according to nature. All must die, and no one can take
along with him his glory or earthly happiness; for, as the Holy Ghost
tells us: "Be thou not afraid, when a man shall be made rich, and
when the glory of his house shall be increased. For when he shall
die, he shall take nothing away; nor will his glory descend with
him."+

* Heb. ix. 27.
+ Ps. xlviii.

Where is now the happiness and the glory of those mighty kings and
queens who were once surrounded with all the magnificence of this
world? The grave answers: "It is no more." Where is now the glory of
those mighty conquerors, who placed their supreme happiness in
subjugating nations to their sway, in making widows and orphans, and
in spreading devastation and ruin wherever they went? It is no more!
We can say of them, in the words of the royal Prophet: "I have seen
the wicked highly exalted, and lifted up like the cedars of Libanus.
And I passed by, and lo! he was not: and I sought him: and his place
was not found."* Death laid