trembled; attentions, which were troublesome to him; subjections, which, in spite of himself, still divided him between heaven and the earth: we feel little regret for the loss of what we have never loved. From his riches and wealth? Alas! his treasure was in heaven: his riches had been the riches of the poor: he loses them not; he only goes to regain them for ever in the bosom of God. From his titles and his dignities? Alas! it is a yoke from which he is delivered. The only title dear to him was the one he had received in baptism, which he now bears to the presence of God, and which constitutes his claim to the eternal promises. From his relations and friends? Alas! he knows he only precedes them by a moment; that death cannot separate those whom charity hath joined upon the earth; and that, soon united together in the bosom of God, they shall again form the church and the same people, and shall enjoy the delights of an immortal society. From his children? He leaves to them the Lord as a father; his example and his instructions as an inheritance; his good wishes and his blessing as a final consolation. And, like David, he expires in intreating for his son Solomon, not temporal prosperities, but a perfect heart, love of the law, and the fear of the God of his fathers. From his body? Alas! from that body which he had always chastised, crucified; which he considered as his enemy; which kept him still dependent upon the senses and the flesh; which overwhelmed him under the weight of so many humiliating wants; from that house of clay which confined him prisoner; which prolonged the days of his banishment and his slavery, and retarded his union with Jesus Christ. Ah! like St. Paul, he earnestly wishes its dissolution: it is an irksome clothing from which he is delivered; it is a wall of separation from his God, which is destroyed, and which now leaves him free and qualified to take his flight toward the eternal mountains. Thus death separates him from nothing, because faith had already separated him from all.
I do not add, that the changes which take place on the bed of death, so full of despair to the sinner, change nothing in the faithful soul. His reason, it is true, decays; but, for a long time past, he had subjected it to the yoke of faith, and extinguished its vain lights before the light of God and the profundity of his mysteries. His expiring eyes become darkened, and are closed upon all visible objects; but long ago they had been fixed on the Invisible alone. His tongue is immoveable; but he had long before planted the guard of circumspection on it, and meditated in silence the mercies of the God of his fathers. All his senses are blunted and lose their natural use; but for a long time past, he had himself interdicted their influence. He had eyes and saw not; ears, and heard not; taste, and relished only the things of heaven. Nothing is changed, therefore, to this soul on the bed of death. His body falls in pieces; all created beings vanish from his eyes; light retires; all nature returns to nothing; and, in the midst of all these changes, he alone changeth not; he alone is always the same.
