504 WORKS OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [HOMILY VIII. For if thou dost not deserve wealth, nor seek to increase thy present possessions, thy burden will be light. To get riches is much more laborious than to take care of them. If therefore thou cuttest off this one thing, accumulating, and suppliest the needy out of thy substance, God will hold over thee His protecting hand. And if thou sayest this from a real desire to preserve the inheritance of thy fatherless children, and art not, under this pretense, possessed with covetousness ; He who searches the heart knows how to secure their riches, even He who com manded thee to bring up children. For it is not possible, indeed it is not, that a house established by almsgiving should suffer any calamity. If it should be unfortunate for a time, in the end it will prosper. This will be more than spear and shield to all the house hold. Hear what the devil says concerning Job. " Hast not thou made an hedge about him and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side?" (Job i. 10.) Wherefore? Hear Job himself saying, " I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. I was a father to the orphans." (Job xxix. 15.) As he who does not turn aside from the calamities of others, will not suffer even in his own misfortunes, because he has learnt to sympathize ; so he who will not bear the griefs of sympathy, will learn all sorrow in his own person. 1 And, as in the case of a bodily disease, if, when the foot is mortified, the hand does not sympathize by cleansing the wound, washing away the discharge, and apply ing a plaster, it will suffer the like disease of its own ; so she who will not minister to another when she is not herself afflicted, will have to bear sufferings of her own. For the evil spread ing from the other part will reach to this also, and the question will not be of ministering to the other, but of its own cure and relief. So it is here also. He that will not relieve others, will be a sufferer himself. " Thou hast hedged him in," saith Satan, " within and without," and I dare not attack him ! But he suffered afflic tions, you say. True. But those afflictions were the occasion of great good. His substance was doubled, his reward increased, his righteousness enlarged, his crown was splendid, his prize glori ous. Both his spiritual and temporal blessings were augmented. He lost his children, but he received, not these restored, but others in their room, and those too he had safe for the Resur rection. Had they been restored, the number would have been diminished, but now having given others in their stead, He will present them also at the Resurrection. All these things hap pened to him, because of his openhandedness in almsgiving. Let us then do likewise, that we may obtain the same rewards by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. HOMILY VIII. 2 TIMOTHY iii. 1-4. "This know also, that in the last clays perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, dis obedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, in continent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." IF any now takes offense at the existence of heretics, let him remember that it was so from the beginning, the devil always setting up error by the side of truth. God from the beginning promised good, the devil came too with a prom ise. God planted Paradise, the devil deceived, saying, "Ye shall be as gods." (Gen. iii. 5.) For as he could show nothing in actions, he made the more promises in words. Such is the character of deceivers. After this were Cain and Abel, then the sons of Seth and the daugh- 1 " The tender for another s pain, Th unfeeling for his own." Gray. ters ofmen ; afterwards Ham and Japhet, Abra ham and Pharaoh, Jacob and Esau ; and so it is even to the end, Moses and the magicians, the Prophets and the false prophets, the Apostles and the false apostles, Christ and Antichrist. Thus it was then, both before and at that time. Then there was Theudas, then Simon, then were the Apostles, then too this party of Hermogenes and Philetus. In short, there was no time when falsehood was not set up in opposition to truth. Let us not therefore be distressed. That it would be so, was foretold from the beginning. Therefore he says, " Know that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, un thankful, unholy, without natural affection." The unthankful then is unholy, and this is natural, for what will he be to others, who is not grateful to his benefactor? The unthankful man is a truce-breaker, he is without natural affection.