As for fame and glory desired only for worldly pleasure, they do unto the soul inestimable harm.  For they set men’s hearts upon high devices and desires of such things as are immoderate and outrageous.  And by help of false flatterers, they puff up a man in pride and make a brittle man—­lately made of earth, that shall again shortly be laid full low in earth and there lie and rot and turn again into earth—­take himself in the meantime for a god here upon earth and think to win himself to be lord of all the earth.  This maketh battles between these great princes, with much trouble to much people, and great effusion of blood, and one king looking to reign in five realms, who cannot well rule one.  For how many hath now this great Turk?  And yet he aspireth to more.  And those that he hath, he ordereth evilly—­and yet he ordereth himself worst.

Then, offices of authority:  If men desire them only for their worldly fancies, who can look that ever they shall occupy them well, and not rather abuse their authority and do thereby great hurt?  For then shall they fall from indifference and maintain false suits for their friends.  And they shall bear up their servants, and such as depend upon them, with bearing down of other innocent folk, who are not so able to do hurt as easy to take harm.  Then the laws that are made against malefactors shall they make, as an old philosopher said, to be much like unto cobwebs, in which the little gnats and flies stick still and hang fast, but the great humble-bees break them and fly quite through.  And then the laws that are made as a buckler in the defence of innocents, those shall they make serve for a sword to cut and sore wound them with—­and therewith wound they their own souls sorer.

And thus you see, cousin, that of all these outward goods which men call the goods of fortune, there is never one that, unto those who long for it not for any godly purpose but only for their worldly welath, hath any great commodity to the body.  And yet are they all, beside that, very deadly destruction unto the soul.

XIII

VINCENT:  Verily, good uncle, this thing is so plainly true that no man can with any good reason deny it.  But I think also, uncle, that no man will do so.  For I see no man who will confess, for very shame, that he desireth riches, honour, renown, and offices of authority only for his worldly pleasure.  For every man would fain seem as holy as a horse.  And therefore will every man say—­and would it were so believed, too—­that he desireth these things, though for his worldly wealth a little so, yet principally to merit thereby through doing some good with them.

ANTHONY:  This is, cousin, very surely so, that so doth every man say.  But first he who in the desire of these things hath his respect unto his worldly wealth, as you say, “but a little so,” so much as he himself thinketh but a little, may soon prove a great deal too much.  And many men will say so, too, who have principal respect unto their worldly commodity, and toward God little or none at all.  And yet they pretend the contrary, and that unto their own harm.  For “God cannot be mocked.”