JamesBaldwinStamp - The Monday Morning Memo

“

Another shines in all the splendor of a brilliant fortune, and around him are a multitude of flatterers, an escort of false friends on the track of his good graces; a swarm of servants who crowd after him to provide for his food and for all his needs; and in his comings and goings this innumerable retinue he drags after him excites the envy of all he meets. To fortune may be added power in the State, honors bestowed by the imperial throne, the government of a province, or the command of armies. A herald who precedes him is crying in a loud voice. Guards right and left also fill his subjects with awe, blows, confiscations, banishments, imprisonments, and all the means by which he strikes intolerable terror into all whom he has to rule.

And what then? One night, a fever, a pleurisy, or an inflammation of the lungs, snatches away this man from the midst of men, stripped in a moment of all his stage accessories, and all this, his glory, is proved a mere dream.

Therefore the Prophet has compared human glory to the weakest flower.

“

- St. Basil, Hexameron 5.2, which he wrote in 378 A.D. (sent to us by Manley Miller)

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