A play in five acts.

The first act intro­duces those that have wives. It opens with a wed­ding. The bride and bride­groom advance to the altar in bridal attire. The bells are ring­ing, crowds are cheer­ing at the door, while over­flow­ing mirth is supreme within. In another scene we observe domes­tic hap­pi­ness and pros­per­ity, a lov­ing hus­band and a happy wife. Fur­ther on in the per­for­mance, rosy chil­dren are climb­ing the father’s knee. The lit­tle prat­tles are lisp­ing their mother’s name.

“Now,” says our the­atre com­pan­ion as he gazes with rap­ture, “This is real and endur­ing, I know it is. This will sat­isfy me. I crave for noth­ing more than this. Home is a word as sweet as heaven, and a healthy, happy race of chil­dren is as fine a pos­ses­sion as even angels can desire. On this rock will I build all my hope. Secure me this por­tion, and I cheer­fully renounce all the dreamy joys of reli­gion.” We whis­per in his ear that all this is but a chang­ing scene which will by-and-by pass away, that time is short, and that his wife and chil­dren are dying creatures.

The man laughs at us and says, “Fanat­ics and enthu­si­asts may seek eter­nal joys, but these are enough for me.” He believes that if there is any­thing per­ma­nent in the uni­verse, it is mar­ry­ing and being given in mar­riage, edu­cat­ing and bring­ing up a fam­ily, and see­ing them all com­fort­ably set­tled. He is right in valu­ing the bless­ing, but wrong in mak­ing it his all. Will he see his error before the cur­tain falls, or will he con­tinue to base the hopes of an immor­tal spirit upon dying joys?

See the green mounds in the ceme­tery, and the head­stone, with “Here he lies.” Alas for you, poor deluded worldling, where is your soul now? Does it con­sole you that the dust of your off­spring shall min­gle with your ashes? Where have you now a home? What fam­ily have you now to care for? The first act is over. Take a breath and say, “This also is vanity.”

The tenor of the drama changes, alas, how soon! House­hold joys are linked with house­hold sor­rows. They that weep are now before us in the sec­ond act. The cloudy and dark days have come. There are par­ents wring­ing their hands. A beloved child has died and they are fol­low­ing its corpse to the tomb. Soon, the mer-chant has suf­fered a tremen­dous loss. He puts his hand to his aching head and mourns, for he knows not what will be the end of his trou­bles. The wife is smit­ten by the hand of death. She lies on her bed, blanched with sick­ness, and wan with pain. At her side there is a weep­ing hus­band, and then there is another funeral, and in the dim dis­tance I see the black horses again and again. The woes of men are fre­quent. Sorrow’s vis­its are not, like those of angels, few and far between.

Our man of the world, who is much moved at this sec­ond act, fore­see­ing his own sor­rows in it, weeps until he fairly sobs out his feel­ings, clutches us with earnest­ness and cries, “Surely this is awfully real. You can­not call this a fleet-ing sor­row or a light afflic­tion! I will wring my hands for­ever. The delight of my eyes has been taken from me. I have lost all my joys now. My Beloved in whom I trusted has with­ered like a leaf in autumn before my face. Now shall I despair. I shall never look up again!”

“I have lost my for­tune,” says the afflicted mer­chant, “and dis­tress over­whelms me. This world is indeed a wilder­ness to me. All its flow­ers are with­ered. I would not give a snap of my fin­ger to live now, for every­thing worth liv­ing for is gone!” Sym­pa­thiz­ing deeply with our friend, we nev­er­the­less ven­ture to tell him that these tri­als to the Chris­t­ian, because they are so short and pro­duce such last­ing good, are not killing sor­rows. “Ah,” says he, “you men of faith may talk in that way, but I can­not. I tell you these are real things.”

Like an Eng­lish sailor, who, see­ing a play, sprung upon the stage to help a lady in dis­tress, believ­ing that the whole was real, so do such men weep and sigh, as if they were to mourn for-ever, because some earthly good has been removed. Oh, if they only knew that the depths of sor­row were never yet explored by a mor­tal mourner! Oh, that they would escape from those lower depths where immor­tal spir­its weep and wail amid an empha­sis of mis­ery! The sor­rows of time are tri­fles indeed when com­pared with the pains of ever­last­ing pun­ish­ment. On the other hand we reckon that they “are not wor­thy to be com­pared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). They are but light afflic­tions, which are but for a moment, a mere pin prick to the man of faith.

Happy is the man whose eyes are open to see that heirs of heaven do not sor­row as those who are with­out hope. A real joy of heav­enly ori­gin is ever with believ­ers, and it is but the shadow of sor­row which falls upon them. There let the cur­tain drop, let us enter into an eter­nal state: and what and where are these tem­po­rary griefs?

The third act comes on and presents us with a view of those who rejoice. It may be that the first-born son has come of age, and there are great fes­tiv­i­ties. They are eat­ing and drink­ing in the ser­vants’ hall and in the master’s ban­quet cham­ber. There are high notes of joy and many com­pli­ments, and the smil­ing sire is as glad as a man can be. Or is it the daughter’s wed­ding where kind friends implore a thou­sand bless­ings on her head, and the father smiles and shares the joy. Or is it a gain in busi­ness, a for­tu­nate spec­u­la­tion, or the prof­its of indus­try have come flow­ing in, slowly per­haps, but still surely. The man is full of rejoic­ing: he has a house, home, friends, rep­u­ta­tion, and hon­our. He is, in the eyes of all who know him, happy. Those who do not know him think that he has no cares, that he can have no sor­rows, that his life must be one per­pet­ual feast, and that, surely there can be no spot in his sun, no win­ter in his year, no ebb to fol­low his floods.

Our friend by our side is smil­ing at this sunny pic­ture. “There,” says he, “is not that real? Why, there must be some­thing in that! What more do you want? Only let me get the same, and I will leave you the joys of faith, and heaven, and immor­tal­ity to your­selves. These are the things for me. Only let me laugh and make merry, and you may pray as you will. Fill high the bowl for me. Put the roast and food on the table, and let me eat and drink, for tomor­row I die.”

If we gen­tly hint to our friend that all this passes away like a vision of the night, and that we have learned to look on it as though it did not exist, he laughs us to scorn, and accounts us mad when he is most mad him­self. As for our­selves, far from rest­ing upon the soft­est couch that earth can give us, we instead spurn its vain delights.

“There’s noth­ing round this spa­cious earth
That suits my large desire.
To bound­less joy and solid mirth
My nobler thoughts aspire.
Where plea­sure rolls its liv­ing flood,
From sin and dross refined,
Still spring­ing from the Throne of God,
And fit to cheer the mind.”

But the forth act of the drama is before us. They that buy demand our atten­tion. The mer­chant is nei­ther a man of mirth nor a mourner. In the eyes of cer­tain Mam­monites he is attend­ing to the one sure neces­sity, the most sub­stan­tial of con­cerns. Here feast your eyes, you hard, prac­ti­cal, earth-dwellers. There are his money bags. Hear how they thump on the table! There are the rolls of bonds, the banker’s books, the title deeds of estates, mort­gages and secu­ri­ties, and the solid invest­ment in his government’s own trea­sury notes. He has made a good thing of life, and still he adheres to busi­ness, as he should do. Like any painstak­ing man, he is accu­mu­lat­ing still and pil­ing up his heap, mean­while adding field to field and estate to estate, until soon he will pos­sess a whole coun­try. He has just now been buy­ing a large and very fine house, where he intends to spend the remain­der of his days, for he is about to retire from busi­ness. The lawyer is busy mak­ing out the trans­fer, the sum of money is wait­ing to be paid, and the whole thing is as good as settled.

“Ah, now,” says our friend, who is look­ing on at the play, “You are not going to tell me that this is all a shadow! It is not! There is some­thing very real and solid here, at least, some­thing that will per­fectly sat­isfy me.” We tell him that we dare say there is some­thing that will sat­isfy him, but our desires are of a larger span, and noth­ing but the Infi­nite can fill them.

Alas for the man who can find sat­is­fac­tion in earthly things! It will be only for a time. When he comes to lie upon his death bed, he will find his buy­ing and his sell­ing are poor things with which to stuff a dying pil­low. He will find that his gain­ing and his acqui­si­tions bring but lit­tle com­fort to an aching heart, and no peace to a con­science exer­cised with the fear of the wrath to come. “Ah, ah!” he cries, and sneers sar­cas­ti­cally, putting us aside as only fit for a mad­house, “Let me trade and make a for­tune, and that is enough for me. With that I shall be well con­tent!” Alas, poor fool, the snow melts not sooner than the joy of wealth, and the smoke of the chim­ney is as solid as the com­fort of riches!

But we must not miss the fifth act. See the rich man, our friend whom lately we saw mar­ried, whom we saw in trou­ble, after­wards rejoic­ing and pros­per­ing in busi­ness. He has entered upon a ripe old age. He has retired and has now come to use the world. The world says he has been a wise man and has done well, for all men will praise you when you do well for your­self. Now, he keeps a lib­eral table, a fine gar­den, excel­lent horses, and many ser­vants. He has all the com­forts in fact that wealth can command.

As you look around his noble park, as you gaze at his avenue of fine old trees, or stay a day or two at the fam­ily man­sion and notice all its lux­u­ries, you hear your friend say­ing, “Aye, there is some­thing very real here. What do you think of this?”

We hint that the grey hairs of the owner fore­shadow that his time is short, and that if this is all he has, he is a very poor man. He will soon have to leave it, and his regrets in leav­ing will make his death more pitiable than that of a pau­per. Our friend replies, “Ah! You are always talk­ing in this way. I tell you, this is not a play. I believe that it is all real and sub­stan­tial, and I am not, by any talk­ing of yours, to be made to think that it is unsub­stan­tial and will soon be gone.”

O world, you have fine actors, to cheat men so well, or else mor­tal man is an easy fool, taken in your net like the fishes of the sea. The whole mat­ter is most pal­pa­bly a show, but yet men give their souls to win it. “Why do you spend your money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not sat­isfy?” (Isa­iah 55:2)

– C. H. Spurgeon

Spur­geon was a 19th cen­tury preacher, the pre­ced­ing text is from a col­lec­tion of var­i­ous wis­dom. This was once part of a ser­mon based on 1 Corinthi­ans 7:29 – 31.