thus fareth it by those parts that are beneath
the belly. And as for covetousness, it fareth like the fire--the
more wood there cometh to it, the more fervent and the more greedy
it is.

But now hath this maze a centre or middle place, into which these
busy folk are sometimes conveyed suddenly when they think they are
not yet far from the brink. The centre or middle place of this
maze is hell. And into that place are these busy folk who with
this devil of business walk about in this busy maze, in the
darkness, sometimes suddenly conveyed, unaware whither they are
going. And that may be even while they think that they have not
walked far from the beginning, and that they have yet a great way
to walk about before they should come to the end. But of these
fleshly folk walking in this busy pleasant maze the scripture
declareth the end: "They lead their life in pleasure, and at a pop
down they descend into hell."

Of the covetous man saith St. Paul, "They that long to be rich do
fall into temptation and into the snare of the devil, and into
many unprofitable and harmful desires, which drown men into death
and destruction." Lo, here in the middle place of this busy maze,
the snare of the devil, the place of perdition and destruction, in
which they fall and are caught and drowned ere they are aware!

The covetous rich man also that our Saviour speaketh of in the
gospel, who had so great plenty of corn that his barns would not
receive it, but intended to make his barns larger, and said unto
himself that he would make merry many days--he thought, you know,
that he had a great way yet to walk. But God said unto him, "Fool,
this night shall they take thy soul from thee, and then all these
goods that thou hast gathered, whose shall they be?" Here, you
see, he fell suddenly into the deep centre of this busy maze, so
that he was fallen full into it ere ever he had thought he should
have come near to it.

Now this I know very well: Those who are walking about in this
busy maze take not their business for any tribulation. And yet are
there many of them as sore wearied in it, and sore panged and
pained, their pleasures being so short, so little, and so few, and
their displeasures and their griefs so great, so continual, and so
many. It maketh me think on a good worshipful man who, when he
divers times beheld what pain his wife took in tightly binding up
her hair to make her a fair large forehead, and with tightly
bracing in her