rs ago, the great Sultan of Syria, who many a year together bore
himself as high as the great Turk, and afterward in one summer unto
the great Turk that whole empire was lost? And so may all his
empire now--and shall hereafter, by God's grace--be lost into
Christian men's hands likewise, when Christian people shall be
amended and grow in God's favour again. But since whole kingdoms
and mighty great empires are of so little surety to stand, but are
so soon transferred from one man unto another, what great thing can
you or I--yea, or any lord, the greatest in this land--reckon
himself to have, by the possession of a heap of silver or gold? For
they are but white and yellow metal, not so profitable of their own
nature, save for a little glittering, as the rude rusty metal of
iron.

VI

Lands and possessions many men esteem much more yet than money,
because the lands seem not so casual as money is, or plate. For
though their other substance may be stolen and taken away, yet
evermore they think that their land will lie still where it lay.
But what are we the better that our land cannot be stirred, but
will lie still where it lay, since we ourselves may be removed and
not suffered to come near it? What great difference is there to us,
whether our substance be movable or unmovable, since we be so
movable ourselves that we may be removed from them both and lose
them both twain? Yet sometimes in the money is the surety somewhat
more. For when we be fain ourselves to flee, we may make shift to
carry some of our money with us, whereas of our land we cannot
carry one inch.

If our land be a thing of more surety than our money, how happeth
it then that in this persecution we are more afraid to lose it? For
if it be a thing of more surety, then can it not so soon be lost.
In the transfer of these two great empires--Greece first, since I
myself was born, and after Syria, since you were born too--the land
was lost before the money was found!

Oh, Cousin Vincent, if the whole world were animated with a
reasonable soul, as Plato thought it were, and if it had wit and
understanding to mark and perceive everything, Lord God, how the
ground on which a prince buildeth his palace would loud laugh its
lord to scorn, when it saw him proud of his possession and heard
him boast himself that he and his blood are for ever the very lords
and owners of the land! For then would the ground think the while,
to itself, "Ah, thou poor soul, who t