Understand me, my brethren: the sin I am going to speak of is mortal sin. I do not say that every transgression of the law of God is mortal. You know that it is not so. You know that there some actions which men commit, which are forbidden, but by which a man does not mean really to give up the friendship of God—some sins which are not committed with full deliberation, some sins in which the matter is very small, some sins which come more from ignorance or frailty than from malice; and which God, who sees things just as they are, does not regard as grievous. He is displeased with them, but not mortally offended. He punishes them, but not with the utter withdrawal of His favor. If He did, who of us could be saved? But every sin in which the soul sees clearly that she must choose between the friendship of God and the gratification of unlawful passion—in which, with full deliberation, in full defiance of any grave precept of God or the Holy Church, she obeys the call of corrupt nature, every such sin is mortal, that, is, grievously offends God and cuts off the soul from His grace. Do you want to know what a mortal sin is? It is an insult offered to God—Almighty God. One trembles to say it, but so it is. Yes! if you have committed one mortal sin, you have insulted Almighty God. And there is every thing in the act to make the insult deep and deadly. The greatness of an insult is measured by the comparative importance of the persons between whom the offence passes. If one should come into the church and strike the bishop on his throne, would you not feel more indignant than if a common man in the street were the object of the insult? You have heard how Pius the Sixth was insulted; dragged about from place to place, until he died; and did you not feel indignant that such outrages were committed on the person of God's vicegerent? Now, when you committed a mortal sin you insulted, not the vicegerent of God, but God himself. You contemned His authority and despised His greatness. Would you know Who it is Whom you have offended? Look at that mountain trembling with earthquakes, and breathing forth smoke and flame, hear the thunder roll around its head, and see the lightning flash! Mark the people, how they fall back affrighted and terrified! What is the cause of these convulsions of nature, and this terror of the people? God is speaking. He spake in Mount Sinai and the earth trembled before Him; and it is His words then spoken that you have defied, O sinner! Are you not afraid of His vengeance Whom you have offended? Open the heavens and see the angels, thousands of thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand, prostrate before Him. See all the saints adoring Him—the Blessed Virgin Mary herself trembling before His greatness. And you insult Him! What are you? A creature, a dependant, a slave. What would a master do if his slave should strike him? And you, a servant, a slave, a mere nothing, have not hesitated to raise your hand against Almighty God!
And for what have you done all this? For the pleasure of sin. You have preferred a vile, temporary gratification, to the favor of Almighty God. When you sinned, there was on one side the beauty of God, the beauty of perfection, the splendor of grace, the joy of saints, peace of conscience, heaven; on the other there was the false pleasure of sin. You weighed them in the balance one with another, and, oh folly! in your estimation a moment's sin outweighed God and heaven and eternity. This is what the Almighty complains of in Holy Scripture: "They violated me among my people for a handful of barley and a piece of bread to kill souls which should not die." [Footnote 17]
[Footnote 17: Ezech. xiii. 19.]
Oh! for how small a thing it is that you have been content to lose God—a few dollars of unjust gain, human respect, the gratification of revenge, a night's debauch, a half-hour's indulgence of sinful thoughts, a forbidden word, an intoxicating glass: for this you have thrown to the winds God and heaven. What has He not done for you? He takes care of you and gives you all you have. It is He who warms you by the sun, refreshes you by the air, gladdens and nourishes you by the green field. It is He who brought you through the dangerous time of childhood, Who led you up through manhood, Who redeemed you by His blood, made you a Catholic, and gave you your parents, friends, every blessing, and the hope of heaven beyond this life, and you have grieved and hated Him. See Jesus Christ before the Jews. He has spent His life in doing them good. He has labored for them and is about to die for them. And now they spit on Him, they buffet Him, they crown Him with thorns and bow the knee in mockery before Him. Nay, O sinner! thou art the Jew who did this. Thou by thy mortal sin hast made him an object of scorn. Thou hast spit upon Him, thou hast stabbed Him to the heart. Would you excuse a son from the guilt of parricide who should strike a knife to his father's heart, and should miss his aim? So, the sinner is no less guilty of the crime against the life of God because God cannot die. If God could die or cease to be, mortal sin is that which would kill Him. You have aimed a blow at the life of your best benefactor, of your God. And this is what passes in the world for a light thing. This is what men laugh at and boast of over their cups. This is what the world excuses, and takes for a matter of course; yes, this is what even boys and girls, as they grow up, desire not to be ignorant of—that they may know how to offend God. This is sin, so easily committed and so often committed, so quickly committed and so soon forgotten. Such it is in the sight of God and the holy angels. O sinner! when you smile, often when you are rejoicing over your wicked pleasure, the heavens are black overhead, and God is angry, and the angel of vengeance stands at your side with a glittering spear, that he may plunge it in your heart. While you are careless, heaven and earth are groaning over your guilt. "Wonder, O ye heavens, and be in amazement," says God by the prophet. "My people have done two evils. They have left me, the fountain of living water, and have digged out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have brought up children and exalted them, but they have despised me. The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib, but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood. Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy one of Israel, they have gone away backward." [Footnote 18]
[Footnote 18: Isai. i. 2, 3, 4.]
But in the second place, mortal sin is the greatest of all evils as regards the sinner himself. Let us consider what are its effects. Ah, my brethren, some of these effects are obvious enough. We have not to go far to seek them. We know them ourselves. What is the cause of much of the sickness that affects our race? What but sin? What is it that has ruined so many reputations, that once were fair and unblemished? What is it that has destroyed the peace of so many families? It is sin. What is it that makes so many young persons prematurely old, which steals the bloom from the cheek and the lustre from the eye, and gladness from the heart, and strength from the voice, and elasticity from the gait? Ah! it is sin. Yes! the effects of sin are visible and obvious to all around us, and these external effects of sin are dreadful enough, but they are not so dreadful as the internal effects, on which I purpose particularly to dwell. Well, my brethren, I just said that the nature of a mortal sin is to turn away from God to the creature. Now, its effect is to kill the soul. There is a twofold life of the soul. One is a natural life, and this it can never lose, not even in hell, since it can never cease to be; and the other is the life of grace. You know, my brethren, that in the heart of a good Christian there dwells a wonderful quality, the gift of the Holy Ghost, which we call grace. It is given first in baptism, and resides habitually in the soul unless it is lost by mortal sin. This it is which makes the soul acceptable to God, and capable of pleasing Him, and of meriting heaven. This grace was purchased for us by the blood of Jesus Christ, and is the most precious gift of God. It ennobles, beautifies, elevates, strengthens, and enlightens the soul in which it dwells: in a word, it is the life of the soul. This grace abides in the soul of every faithful Christian, the little child, the virtuous young man and young woman, the old man and the matron, the rich and the poor. Everyone who is in the state of friendship with God is possessed of this grace. He may be poor, sick, weak in body, disgusting as Lazarus was, but if he is the friend of God, his soul is endowed with the gift of grace. Now, the moment that one commits a mortal sin, the moment that a baptized Christian turns away from God to the creature, that moment his soul is stripped of this divine grace. The moment that a mortal sin is committed, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, that robe of grace falls off from the soul and leaves it in its deformity and weakness. It cannot be otherwise. "Can two walk together," says Holy Scripture, "and not be agreed?" Can God remain united to the soul which has cast Him off by an act of complete and formal rebellion? Oh, no! God bears much with us, He retains His friendship for us as long as He can, He restrains His displeasure when we are weak and irresolute and tired in His service; yes, when we a little turn our heads and hearts toward that world which we have renounced, when we do things that, although wrong, are not altogether so grievous as to amount to a renunciation of His friendship: but once make a full choice between God and the creature, and God's friendship is lost. You cannot reject it and retain it at the same time. God sees things exactly as they are: as you act toward Him, He will act toward you. By mortal sin you renounce Him, and therefore He must renounce you. How can I describe to you the change that takes place in that moment? It has more resemblance to the degradation of a priest than any thing else. If a priest commits certain great crimes, the Church prescribes that he be solemnly degraded from the priesthood; and nothing is more dreadful than the ceremonial. He stands before the bishop, clad in his sacred vestments, with alb and cincture, and maniple and stole, and with the chalice in which he has been wont to consecrate the blood of the Lord in his hands. Then when the sentence of degradation has been pronounced, the chalice is taken out of his hands—he shall offer the sacrifice of the Lord's body no more; the golden chasuble is taken off his back, no more shall he bear the glory of the priesthood; the stole is seized from off his neck—he has lost the stole of immortality; the white alb is torn from him— he has lost the beauty of innocence; and last of all, his hands, on which at his ordination the holy oil was poured, are scraped—he has lost the unction of the Holy Ghost. So it is in the moment that one commits a mortal sin. The Holy Scripture calls every Christian a king and a priest, because in his soul he is noble and united to God; and the soul of the meanest Christian is far more beautiful in God's sight than the grandest monarch, dressed in his richest robes, is to our sight. Well, now, as soon as a mortal sin is committed, and God departs, then the degradation of the soul takes place. The devil tears away the garment of justice, the splendor of beauty, the whiteness of innocence, the robe of immortality, which make the soul worthy of the companionship of angels, and the friendship of God. All, all are gone. Oh, how abject and wretched is such a soul! Oh I how quickly will this awful change go on, and even the poor soul herself thinks not of it! And do not think this horrible history is of rare occurrence. No! it takes place in every case of mortal sin. Look at that young man. See, his air and bearing show you that he knows something of the world, and that life has no secrets for him. Still there was once a time when that young man was innocent. He was a good Catholic child, his soul glistened with the brightness of baptismal grace. God looked down from heaven and smiled with pleasure; his guardian angel followed him in watchfulness indeed, but with joy and hope. He had his little trials, but what was it all—what was poverty or sickness or disappointment? Was he not a Christian? Was he not a friend of God, was not his soul beautiful in God's sight? Such he was; but a day came, a dark and dreadful day, when a voice, a seducing voice, spoke in the paradise of that heart: "Rejoice, therefore, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the sight of thine eyes." [Footnote 19]
[Footnote 19: Eccles. xi. 9.]
He listened to that voice and he fell: he was a changed being, he had committed his first mortal sin. Oh! if he could have seen the angry frown of God, the sad and downcast look of his guardian angel. Oh! if he could have heard the shriek of triumph that came up from the devils in hell. "Thou art also wounded as well as we, thou art become like unto us. Thy pride is brought down to hell. Thy carcass is fallen down. [Footnote 20]
[Footnote 20: Isai. xiv. 10, 11.]
But he hears nothing, he sees nothing, his brain is on fire, his heart is burned by passion. The world opens to him her brilliant pleasures, and he is perverted. His tastes and thoughts are all corrupted. He does not like the sacraments any more, or Mass or prayer; his delight is in haunts of dissipation, in drinking and debauchery. He commits every mortal sin, and each deepens the stains of his soul and increases his misery. Perhaps here and there, for a while, he comes to confession, but he falls back. He neglects his church, begins to curse and blaspheme holy things, and then he is a wretched being, astray from God, with God's curse upon him, the slave of the devil, the heir of hell, fair indeed without; but look within—full of rottenness and uncleanness. Oh, weep for him—"Weep not for the dead," says Holy Scripture, "lament for him that goeth away, for he shall not return again." [Footnote 21]
[Footnote 21: Jer. xxii. 10.]
Weep for that young man who has wandered away from his God. Weep for that young woman who has stained her soul with mortal sin. Weep for that old man who has let years go by in sin, and whose sins are counted by the thousand. Weep not for your child who leaves you to go to a distant land, but weep for him who is on his way to the land of eternal night, where everlasting horror inhabiteth. Weep for him who is on his way to hell. Is it not a story to make one weep? The ruin of a soul! "How is the gold become dim, the fairest color is changed, the noble sons of Sion, and they that were clothed with the best of gold, how are they esteemed as earthen vessels, and the iniquity of the daughter of my people is made greater than the sin of Sodom." [Footnote 22]
[Footnote 22: Lam. iv. 1, 2, 6.]
Once you were innocent, now you are guilty. Once you had a fair chance of heaven, now heaven is closed to you. Once, perhaps, you had rich merits laid up for heaven, you had gone through many trials, you had borne many sufferings, had achieved many labors of piety, and for each of them the good God, who never allows any good work to go unrewarded, had added many a jewel to your crown; but, alas! that crown is broken, those jewels scattered and crushed, those merits lost. And what has done this. That mortal sin! that rebellion against God, that sinful gratification, that turning away from God and loss of grace which it brought with it. Ah! my brethren, when I think of these things, when I think that Christians are falling into sin, and, for a very trifle and a nothing, losing the favor of God, I feel as if I wished all preachers should go out to the whole world and cry out: "Know thou and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee to have left the Lord thy God." I am not surprised that St. Ignatius said he would be willing to do all he did for the prevention of one mortal sin.
But, my brethren I have not as yet described the full effects of mortal sin. It immediately makes us liable to the eternal punishment of hell. That is what hell is made for. It is the prison for mortal sin. Apostates from the faith, drunkards, murderers, adulterers, the impure, the dishonest, the profane, the impious, calumniators, and all sinners "shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." The sentence of damnation is in the next life, but damnation itself begins in this. Each one of us is a candidate for heaven or hell, at this present moment. Hell is not something which is assigned to us arbitrarily. We dig our own hell for ourselves. When we first commit a mortal sin we open hell under our feet, and every time we commit a fresh mortal sin we deepen that hell. It may happen even that the sentence is passed in the same instant that we sin. Many men die in the very act of sin. The fallen angels, themselves, sank into hell the very instant they committed mortal sin, and the instant they committed the first mortal sin. You know, my brethren, that the angels were created very beautiful and powerful. There were myriads and myriads of them. They were as beautiful as Gabriel or Michael or Raphael; and yet, as soon as they committed one mortal sin, notwithstanding their glory, their beauty, their number, their splendid intellects, their power, they were hurled from the thrones of heaven; not only defaced, degraded, and dishonored by the loss of sanctifying grace, but condemned to hell, chained in everlasting darkness, waiting for the judgment of the great day. If God dealt so with the angels, surely there is nothing unjust in cutting off the days of a sinner in the very moment of sin. Oh! my brethren, I will tell you what happens when one sins: the devils come and claim this soul as their own: this poor soul becomes the slave of the devil, the heir of hell and of damnation. It is not for nothing, then, that conscience makes such a terrible alarm in the soul when we commit a mortal sin. Tell me, did you not at the moment you sinned hear a stern voice speaking in the depths of your heart? Tell me, O my brethren, did you not, when you were deeply plunged in sinful enjoyment, feel a dreadful pang at your heart? Tell me, now that you stand in God's holy presence, tell me now, is there not something within you that tells you, you are ruined? What is that? Ah! that is the beginning of the remorse of the damned. That is the sting of the worm that shall never die. That is the shadow of thine eternal doom in thy soul. It tells thee that thou art the child of the devil; it tells thee that thou hast lost God, and that thou art not fit for heaven, but art an heir of hell. And it tells thee truly. If this moment thou wert to die, like Dives, thou wouldst be buried in hell. And why? For a momentary gratification of appetite? Is that what you will be punished for? No; but because, for a momentary gratification of appetite, thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, broken His law, lost His grace. Thou hast made thy choice. Thou hast chosen sin and not God, and death overtakes thee before thou hast returned to God by penance, and thou art lost; lost on account of thy sin, lost forever on account of thy sin. Go down to the chambers of hell, ask Dives, ask Judas, ask the fallen angels, ask each one who in that dark abode drags out a long eternity; ask them what it is that brought them there, and they will tell you, mortal sin. It is mortal sin that kindles that flame, that feeds that fire, that makes them burn unceasingly, and forever. Oh then, tell me! if you will not listen to reason, to God, to the angels; will you not listen to your companions lost? Hearken to them as from their dark prison they cry out, "It is an evil and a bitter thing to have left the Lord thy God."
Such, my brethren, is mortal sin. Such is one mortal sin. It does
not require many mortal sins to lose God's grace or incur
damnation. One is enough—one final deliberate rebellion against
God and his holy law.
* * *
(Peroration, according to the circumstances.)
"It is a dreadful thing
to fall into the hands of the living God."
—Heb. x. 31.
There is a moment, my brethren, in the history of each immortal soul, which, of all others that precede or follow it, is the fullest of experience: the moment after death. The moment of death is indeed the decisive moment of our history. Then the question is settled, once for all, whether we are to be happy or miserable for all eternity; but, for the most part, we do not know that decision. Many men die insensible. By far the larges part of those I have seen die, have died insensible. And even when the power of the mind remains to the last, it is extremely difficult to form any true conception of that state of things into which the soul is about to be ushered. It is difficult to conceive aright beforehand of any thing to which we are unaccustomed. Did it ever happen to you to visit a strange country, and to form anticipations of what it would seem like, and did not the reality falsify all your anticipations? Well, how much more difficult to realize those things which the soul sees immediately after death, and which are so much farther removed from our former experience! According to Catholic theology, immediately after death, the soul appears in the presence of Jesus Christ to be judged—to receive an unalterable sentence to heaven or to hell. If to hell, no prayers can benefit it; if to heaven, it goes there immediately or not, according to the degree of its goodness. But it is judged unalterably to heaven or hell, the moment after death. And Catholic theologians teach that this judgment takes place in the very chamber of death itself. There, in that room, while they are dressing the body for the grave, closing the eyes, bandaging the mouth, arranging the limbs in order, that soul has already learned the secrets of the eternal world. Naked and alone, it had stood before its Judge, and heard its doom pronounced. To everyone, no doubt, even to the most pious, to those who have meditated on the truths of faith, there will be something alarming in this moment; but, oh! what will it be to the sinful Catholic? What will be the thoughts and feelings of that large class of Catholics, now careless about their salvation, who are obeying every impulse of passion, and breaking every commandment of God? This, indeed, is a difficult question to answer. There is but little in this world that can help us to portray the emotions of the lost Catholic, the moment after death; but I will not on this account desist from attempting to describe it. I will consider your advantage rather than my own satisfaction, and though I feel deeply that I shall not be able to describe the scene I undertake in anything like the colors of truth, I will undertake to do what I can.
First, then, following the soul beyond the limits of this world, I see her overwhelmed with a conviction of the reality and truth of the objects of her faith. Now, in saying that this soul obtains a conviction of the truths of faith, I do not mean to suppose the case of one who has been a sceptic in this world. The truth is, faith is so strong a principle in the heart of a Catholic, that it is exceedingly difficult to put it out or shake it. And although it sometimes happens that a Catholic; from reading bad books, or frequenting the society of those who blaspheme his religion, or from becoming acquainted suddenly with some of the difficulties which science seems to present to faith, and not knowing the answer to them, or from the petty pride of seeming wiser than his neighbors, and making objections which unlearned Catholics cannot answer, may use the language of a sceptic; yet such cases are very rare, and the scepticism is not very deep. A little guidance from one who knows better, and a little humility on the part of such an objector, will set all right. But there is a kind of infidelity not so easily cured, and far more common among Catholics—a practical infidelity, an insensibility and indifference to the truths of faith. The truths of faith—I mean, heaven and hell, God and the soul—are not seen by the eye—it requires reflection to realize them; but the world, and the objects which it presents, are visible and tangible. The former are lost sight of, while the latter absorb all our thoughts. The body clamors for necessities and pleasures, and the soul, and things of eternity, are simply forgotten. It is almost the same to many men as if there were no God, no eternity, no heaven, or no hell. Really, one hardly sees in what the lives of many Catholics would differ from what they are now if there were no God, no heaven or hell. I do not mean to say that they have no faith at all, for even the heathens have some faith; or that they never think of God, for then they would be brutes; but that these things have no real hold on their minds or influence over their hearts. They never reflect. They stay away from the sacraments. They do not listen to sermons. They have no correct idea at all of the advantage they enjoy in being Catholics; in a word, they break the commandments of God on the slightest temptation, are children of this world and immersed in its cares and enjoyments. Now, one of these men meets with a sudden death. He goes out in the morning—perhaps he is a mechanic—and he falls from a height. He is taken up and put in a litter hastily made, and carried home. It is apparent that life is ebbing fast. In a few minutes he becomes speechless. He has lost his sight. Ah! does he breathe at all? It is hard to say. The doctor comes in great haste. He feels his pulse, looks at him, and says, "It is all over. He has received an injury in a vital part. He is dead." Yes, he is dead. This morning he was alive and well, he was making his plans, he was talking of the weather—now he is dead. All his old thoughts and experience are all rolled back by a new set of things that are forcing themselves on his vision. He is dead. He died suddenly; but not without warning. Others have died in his home before—he is not young. He has seen wife and children die. It made him weep for a while; but he forgot it, and now his turn is come—he is dead. I will not stop to notice the grief of the friends he leaves behind. No; I will follow his soul, as it enters eternity. The voice of his friends dies on his ear—he begins to hear other voices. As he ceases to see the people in his room he begins to see other objects. Who is that, that is standing at the foot of his bed? A neighbor was standing there but just now; but this is another form, a form beautiful, indeed, but majestic and terrible. No; it is not anyone he has ever seen before, and yet, he ought to know that face. He has seen it before; it is the face his mother looked on as she was dying-the face he had often seen in Catholic churches. Yes, it is Jesus Christ. He knows it; it is the same, and yet, how different! When he saw that face in pictures, it was crowned with thorns; now it is crowned with a diadem of matchless glory. When he saw that form in the church, it was naked, and hanging on the Cross; now it is clothed with garments of regal magnificence. Yes, it is Jesus Christ! and He is looking upon him with eyes of fire. He turns to escape those eyes, and he sees there are other figures in the scene. There are two figures—one at the right hand, and one at the left. Who are they? He ought to know them, for they know more of him than anyone else—they have been his companions for life. One is very beautiful—a being with golden locks and cloud-like wings—that is his angel guardian; he looks sad now, for he has nothing good to say. And the other is the black and hideous demon of hell, that crouches at his side, full of hate and malice, and triumph, too, for he has dogged the steps of this poor sinner from youth to age, and now the time has come for him to seize his prey. And now, as the sinner looks from one to another, the meaning of it an breaks upon him. Conviction flashes upon his mind. He may not have been an infidel before; but putting his past feelings by the side of his present experience, it seems almost as if he had been. Did it ever happen to you to be talking quite unconcernedly, and all at once to find that others were listening, before whom for worlds you would not have used such unreserve. Well, to compare small things with great, something like this will be the feeling of the sinner when the curtain of time draws up, and shows him the realities of eternity. The whole tide of his past thoughts and feelings will be arrested, and, with a great check, rolled back before the new set of experiences and sights that rush in on him. Oh! he will say, what is this that I see and hear? Has Jesus Christ always been so near me? Have my guardian angel and the demon that has tempted me been always in this very room? Ah, yes! it is even so. I have been living in a dream all my life, and pursuing shadows. It is true, as I learned in the catechism, and as the Church taught me, I was not made for the world or for sin, but for God. I had a soul, and the end of my being was to love and serve my Maker. He has been watching me all my days, and I have thought little of Him. I heard of judgment, but I did not give heed to it, or I placed it far off in the future; but now it is here at the door. There is my Saviour, there my angel guardian, there the demon. Once I heard of these things, now I see them with my eyes. Yes, it is all true. The world did not seem to believe it, the world forgot it; but the world was wrong. The poor and the simple were right, after all, and the wise ones taken in their own craftiness. Yes, Christianity is true, Catholicity is true; I cannot doubt it, if I would, for there it stares me in the face! O, overwhelming conviction! You have heard of the answer of a self-denying old monk to a wild, licentious youth, who reproached him with his folly in living so severe a life for the sake of a hereafter he had never seen. "Father," said the youth, "how much wiser I am than you, if there be no hereafter!" "Yes, my son," replied the aged man, "but how much more foolish, if there be!" O fearful discovery, to come on one for the first time, with a strong and deep impression, at the very threshold of eternity! O miserable man! why did you not think of these things before? Why did you rush into the presence of your Maker without forethought? Now, for the first time, to think seriously, when there is no longer freedom in thought, or merit in faith. O, the folly and the misery!
But I must pass on, for these are but the beginning of sorrows. The conviction, then, that the soul acquires in the first moment of her experience in the other world is accompanied by a mortal terror. Why is Jesus Christ there? Why are the angel and the demon there? Ah! he knows well. It is to try him. Yes, he is to be tried, and to be tried by an unerring judge—by Jesus Christ. To be tried; and that is something he is not used to. He never tried himself. He never examined his conscience. He was afraid to do it, and if sometimes the thought of a hereafter intruded itself into his mind, he banished it, and thought he would escape somehow or other. Perhaps he built on the very name of Catholic, or on the sacraments, as if they possessed a magical power, and would change him at once, in the hour of death, from a sinner to a saint. Perhaps he thought that God would strike a balance between the good and the evil that was in him, and pardon him for being as wicked as he was because he was no worse. Perhaps he built simply on the mercy of God. So far as he thought at all, he built his hopes on some such foundation as this. He did not know how, but he thought somehow he would get off. It is the old story. Almighty God said to Eve: "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." And Eve said to the serpent: "We may not eat it, lest we die." And the serpent said: "Ye shall not surely die." So it is; man's self-love reasons, and the devil denies. But the time has come when the deceits of sin and the devil are discovered. The sinner is to be tried. He stands as a culprit to be judged. And by what law is he to be tried? By the ten commandments, of which he has heard so often, and which he has neglected so completely. God says: "Thou shalt not break My commandments, and in the day thou breakest them thou shalt surely die." God had said: "Thou shalt not commit adultery." He had committed it. God had said: "Thou shalt not steal;" and he had stolen. God had said: "Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath day." He had broken the Sunday and neglected the Sunday's Mass. God had said: "Thou shalt do no murder;" and he had murdered his own soul by drunkenness. He had grown bold in sin, and thought that God had hidden away his face, and would never see it. And now he is brought to trial. There is no hope that his transgressions against the commandments can be hidden. The demon is there as his accuser.
"I claim this soul as mine. Look at it; see if it does not belong to me? Does it not look like me? Wilt thou take a soul like that and place it in thy paradise?" At these words the sinner looks down upon himself and sees his own soul. He has never seen it before. Oh, what a sight! As a man is horror-struck the first time he sees his blotched and bloated face after an attack of small-pox, so is he horror-struck at the sight of his own soul. Oh, how horribly ugly and defiled it is! What are those stains upon his soul Ah! they are the stains of sin. Each one has left its separate mark; and to look at that soul you might see its history. There is the gangrene of lust, and the spot of anger, and the tumor of pride, and the scale of avarice. Ah! how hideous it is, and how horrible to think how it is changed, for it was once like that beautiful angel that stands by its side, all radiant with light and beauty. It has no resemblance now. The words of the demon are true; it resembles him. But the accuser goes on: "I claim this body as mine." He turns to the body, as it lies in the bed: "I claim those eyes as mine, by the title of all the lascivious looks they have given. I claim those hands as mine, by the title of all the robberies and acts of violence they have committed. I claim those feet as mine, because they were swift to carry him to the place of forbidden pleasures, and slow to go to the house of God. I claim these ears as mine, by the title of all the detraction they have drunk in so greedily. I claim this mouth as mine, by the title of all the blasphemies and impurities it has uttered. See," says he, "this body is mine; it bears my mark;" and as he speaks he points to a scar in the forehead, the remnant of a wound received in a drunken affray in a house of ill-fame. Surely he has said enough; but he is not accustomed to be believed. He has now spoken the truth indeed, because truth serves his purpose better than falsehood would have done. But he knows he is a liar, and therefore needs confirmation; so he goes on: "I have witnesses, if you want them. Shall I bring them up?" Jesus Christ gives his permission. And now see, at his word, a band of lost spirits come up from hell. Oh! how pale and haggard they look, and how they glare on the sinner as they fix on him a look of recognition. Who is that who speaks to him first, and holds out her long withered fingers to him, and says, with a horrid laugh: "I think you know me." Oh! that is the poor girl he seduced. She says: "I followed thee to ruin; it is fitting thou shouldst follow me to hell." But there is another woman. Who is that? That is his poor wife; his poor wife, who had to put up with all the cruelties and violence he practised in his beastly drunkenness; who was led by want to steal, and by despair to drunkenness. She looks upon him with a blood-shot eye. "My husband," she says: "thou wert my tormentor in time; I will be thy tormentor in eternity." But who are those young people, that young man and young woman? Oh, they are his eldest children, his boy and girl, of whom he took no care; who, finding nothing but a hell at home, went out—the one to the tavern and the gaming-room, the other to the ball and the dance and the lonely place of assignation, and, after a short career of dissipation, were both cut off in their sin. They meet him, and now they say: "Father, thou didst pave the way of perdition for us, and now we will cling to thee, and drag thee deeper, who art at once the author of our life and of our destruction." Ah! has not the demon made out his case? Can there be hope for one like that? Are you not ready to condemn him yourselves to hell? But wait—perhaps he did good penance. And the Judge, turning to the angel guardian says: "My good and faithful servant, what has thou to say in behalf of this soul, which was committed to thy especial care?" The angel looks down upon the ground and sighs, and answers, "Most just and holy Sovereign, alas! I have nothing to say that can set aside the accusation Thou hast beard. All I can do is to vindicate Thy justice and my fidelity. I have given to the man all the graces Thou hast prepared for him. He was a Catholic. He had the sacraments. He had warnings. He had faith. He had many special graces. He had the mission; and I myself often spoke to him in his heart, calling him to do penance, but he never did do penance. He was careless in attendance at Mass. He was seldom at the confessional, and when he did come he made his confession without a sincere purpose of amendment, and soon relapsed into his former sins, and at last he died without penance. Therefore there is nothing left for me but to resign my charge and to return the crown"—here the angel takes up a beautiful crown—"to return the crown which Thou hadst made for him, that Thou mayst place it on another brow." "Dost Thou not hear," the demon once more cries out impatiently—"Dost thou not hear what the angel says? Yes, this man is mine, has always been mine. I did not create him, and yet he always served me. Thou didst create him, and yet he has refused to obey Thee. I never died for him, yet he has been my willing slave. Thou didst die for him, and yet he has "blasphemed Thy name, broken Thy laws and despised Thy promises. Thou didst allure him by kindness, but wert not able to win his affection. I led him to hell, and found him willing to follow. O Jesus, thou Son of the living God, if Thou dost not give me this soul, there is neither truth in Thy word nor justice in Thy awards." The demon speaks boldly, but Jesus Christ suffers him to speak so, because he speaks truly; and oh, with what terror does the poor sinner hear that truth! But terror is not the only feeling that is to fill his heart. Despair is to come in, to make his misery complete. He begins to cry for mercy. "O God, mercy! have mercy, O Jesus Christ! Do not let me perish whom Thou hast redeemed. I have had the faith; oh, do not let me come to perdition! Only one quarter of an hour to do penance!" Can Jesus Christ resist such an appeal? No, my brethren, if there were a real disposition to do penance in the heart. I will undertake to say that if the devils of hell were willing to do penance, God would forgive them. But there is no penance in the other world. There is only the desire to escape punishment, not the desire to escape sin; and being out of the order of the present providence of God, which leaves the will free, there is no real conversion there. Therefore Jesus Christ answers: "O wicked man, thy deeds condemn thee. Thou callest for mercy, but it is too late. The time for mercy is over! Mercy! thou hast shown no mercy to thyself, to thy wife or children. Mercy! I have shown thee mercy all the days of thy life. I sent thee my preachers, and thou didst refuse to listen. There is no mercy now but justice—and therefore I pronounce the everlasting sentence. I consign this man's soul to hell, and his body to the resurrection of damnation." Did you hear that howl? That was the devil's howl of triumph. Jesus Christ is gone. The angel is gone; and the devil goes to the body. They have not done washing it. He begins to wash too. What is he doing. He is washing the forehead; for on that forehead, the mark of Christ, the holy cross, was placed in baptism, and he is washing it out, and with a brand from hell he places there his own signet—the signet of perdition. And now the soul, feeling the full extent of her misery, cries out: "I am damned. I am damned! no hope more; not even Purgatory. Oh, I never thought it would come to this; I did but do as the others. I was no worse than my companions, and now I am lost. I that was a Catholic, I that had always a good name, and was liked by my friends. And oh, are the judgments of God so strict? What will become of my companions whom I left on the earth, wild and reckless like my self? Will they too follow me to this place of torment! Oh, why did not the priest speak of this? Alas! he did, but I would not hear. Alas, alas, it is too late now! Shall I never see Jesus Christ again? Must I forever despair?" And a voice rises from the walls of eternity with ten thousand reverberations: "Despair." Can there be any thing more dreadful still? Yes, the sinner's cup has one more ingredient of bitterness—remorse. You know what a comfort it is to be able to say, "It was not my fault, I did what I could." But the sinner will not have that comfort. On the contrary, he will say, "I might have been saved. It is all true which the angel said. I was a Catholic, and had the means of salvation. I might have been saved, saved easily, more easily than I was lost. I was never happy; sin never made me happy. I sinned, and gained for myself misery even in the other world. Fool that I was, I might have done penance, and been happier after it, in time and in eternity. How little God asked of me! I had the mission, if I had but made it well. Oh, what trouble I took to be damned, and how little was required of me to be saved! Yesterday, God was ready; the sacraments were at hand, the church door open, the priest was awaiting me; but now all is closed. Oh, if I had them now!" But his complaints are silenced. An iron grasp is on his throat. The demon has his black hand on his throat and chokes him; then he puts his horrid arms around him, and hugs him as the anaconda hugs her victims. He carries him swiftly through the air: down, down they go—until at last they reach the gates of hell. They creak upon their hinges, they open, the demon enters with his prey, and casts it on the bed of flames prepared for it. Then a yell is heard throughout those dismal regions: "One more Catholic vocation thrown away, one more soul lost, one more devil in hell."
Come, let us go back to that room where the corpse is laid out. They have just finished preparing it for the grave, and all that we have described has been taking place in that very room too, and they have not known it. They have smoothed the body and laid a white cloth over it; and they say, how natural it looks. It wears the smile they remember it used to wear in youth, and that poor soul they are talking of is damned. Jesus Christ has been there, and adjudged it to hell. And this is going on every day. Wherever death takes a man, there judgment meets him. Jesus Christ meets men in all kinds of places. You know how death met Baltassar. He was a drunkard, an adulterer, a sacrilegious robber; and one night, when he was drunk, and held a grand feast, surrounded by his concubines, and with the vessels of God's house on his table, a hand appeared on the wall and wrote this sentence: "Mene, Mene, Thecel, Phares;" and that night he died. Yes! in the midst of their sin; in the place where they go, Jesus Christ meets the soul, and condemns it to hell. He meets it in the grogshop, where wild companions are gathered together, and one of them falls to the ground, under the blow of a companion, and dies. There upon that spot, with those bad companions standing around, with the sound of blasphemy in his ear, Jesus Christ, unseen, meets that soul and condemns it to hell. Another is shot in the street, on his way to keep an assignation, and then and there, in the street, Jesus Christ meets him and condemns him to hell. One dies in the low hovel, where squalid vice and misery have done all they could to brutalise the inmates, and then and there Jesus Christ, in that hovel, meets the soul and condemns it to hell. Another dies in a bed covered with silken tapestry, and as he dies he sees the face of Jesus Christ looking in through the silken curtains to pronounce the sentence against him, who had made a god of this world. Another dies in prison, and there in that cell where human justice placed him, divine justice meets him, and in that prison Jesus Christ meets him and condemns him to hell. Yes, wherever death meets you, O sinner, there Jesus Christ will meet you, and there he will condemn you. It may be tomorrow. It may be in the very act of the commission of sin. It may be without any opportunity of preparation, you will stand before an inflexible and unerring Judge. Oh, then, do not delay now to propitiate Him while you can. In that tribunal after death, there is no mercy for the sinner; but there is another tribunal, which He has established, where there is mercy—the tribunal of penance. There the accuser is not the demon, but the sinner himself; and he is not only his own accuser, but his own witness against himself. There the angel guardian waits with joy, not with sorrow. There Jesus Christ is present, but not in wrath. There the sentence is, "I absolve thee from thy sin," not "I condemn thee for thy sin." Oh, then, appeal from one tribunal to the other. Appeal from Jesus Christ to Jesus Christ. Appeal from Jesus Christ at the day of judgment to Jesus Christ in the confessional. And if thou wouldst not be condemned by Him when thou seest Him after death, be sure thou gettest a favorable sentence from Him now in the Sacrament of Penance. "Make an agreement with thy adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him: lest perhaps the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Amen. I say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence till thou pay the last farthing." [Footnote 23]
[Footnote 23: St. Matt. v. 25.]