Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

⁵ Just as if gold were necessary for us all, and we all, I as well as you, were wishing to get at the gold, and there was some anywhere in a field of yours, in a place subject to your power, and I were to see you searching for it, and were to say to you, “What are you searching for?” you were to answer me, “Gold.” And I were to say to you, “You are searching for gold, and I am searching for gold too: what you are searching for, I am searching for; but you are not searching for it where we can find it.

Listen to me then, where we can find it; I am not taking it away from you, I am showing you the spot;” yea, let us all follow Him, who knows where what we are seeking for, is. So now too seeing that you desire “life and good days,” we cannot say to you, “Do not desire 'life and good days;'” but this we say, “Do not seek for 'life and good days' here in this world, where 'good days' cannot be.” Is not this life itself like death? Now these days here hasten and pass away: for today has shut out yesterday; tomorrow only rises that it may shut out today.

These days themselves have no abiding; wherefore would you abide with them? Your desire then whereby ye wish for “life and good days,” I not only do not repress, but I even more strongly inflame. By all means “seek” for “life, seek for good days;” but let them be sought there, where they can be found.