“Remember!” We hear again the solemn tone, warning of mortality.  We see again the mummy, drawn between tables struck silent in their revelry.  We listen to the slave whispering in the ear while the triumph blares.  “Remember!” he whispers.  “Remember thou art man.  Thou shalt go!  Thou shalt go!  Thy triumph shall vanish as a cloud.  Time’s chariot hurries behind thee.  It comes quicker than thine own!” So from the iron bracelet a voice tells of the transitory vision.  All shall go; the jewelled altars and the dim roofs fragrant with incense; the palaces, the towers, and domed cathedrals; the refined clothing, the select surroundings, the courteous receptions of the great; the comfortable health, the noble presence, the satisfactory estimation of the world—­all shall go.  They shall fade away; they shall be removed as a vesture, and like a garment they shall be rolled up.  Press the spikes into thy mouldering flesh.  Remember!  Even while it lives, it is corrupting, and the end keeps hurrying behind.  Remember!  Remember thou art man.

But below that familiar voice which warns the transient generations of their mortality, we may find in those sharpened spikes a more profound and nobler intention.  “Remember thou art man,” they say; but it is not against overweening pride that they warn, nor do they remind only of death’s wings.  “Remember thou art man,” they say, “and as man thou art but a little lower than the angels, being crowned with glory and honour.  This putrefying flesh into which we eat our way—­this carrion cart of your paltry pains and foolish pleasures—­is but the rotten relic of an animal relationship.  Remember thou art man.  Thou art the paragon of animals, the slowly elaborated link between beast and god, united by this flesh with tom-cats, swine, and hares, but united by the spirit with those eternal things that move fresh and strong as the ancient heavens in their courses, and know not fear.  What pain of spikes and sharpened points, what torment that this body can endure from cold or hunger, from human torture and burning flame, what pleasure that it can enjoy from food and wine and raiment and all the satisfactions of sense is to be compared with the glory that may be revealed at any moment in thy soul?  Subdue that bestial and voracious body, ever seeking to extinguish in thee the gleam of heavenly fire.  Press the spikes into the lumpish and uncouth monster of thy flesh.  Remember!  Remember thou art God.”

“Oh, wretched man that I am!  Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” We have grown so accustomed to the cry that we hardly notice it, and yet that the cry should ever have been raised—­that it should have arisen in all ages and in widely separated parts of the world—­is the most remarkable thing in history.  Pleasure is so agreeable, and none too common; or, if one wanted pain for salt, are there not pains enough in life’s common round?  Does it not take us all our time to mitigate the cold, the heat, and hunger; to escape