united with corruption of heart; it inspires all the passions, yet it always blames the consequences of them; it requires you to study the art of pleasing, and it despises you from the moment that you have succeeded; its lascivious theatres resound with extravagant praises of profane love, and its conversations consist only of biting satires upon those who yield themselves up to that unfortunate tendency; it praises the graces, the charms, the miserable talents which light up impure desires, and it loads you with everlasting shame and reproach from the moment that you appear inflamed with them. O, how infinitely above description wretched are those who drag on in a still beloved world, and which they find themselves incapable of doing without, the miserable wrecks of reputation, either blasted or but feebly confirmed; and wherever they showthemselves, to arouse the remembrance or the suspicion of their crimes!
Such had been the afflictions and the disgraces with which the passions and the debaucheries of our sinner were followed; but her penitence restores to her more honour and more glory than had been taken from her by the infamy of her crimes. This sinner, so despised in the world, whose name was never mentioned without a blush, is praised for the very things which even the world considers as most honourable, namely, kindness of heart, generosity of sentiments, and the fidelity of a holy love; this sinner, with whom no comparison durst ever be made, and whose scandal was without example in the city, is exalted above the Pharisee; the truth, the sincerity of her faith, of her compunction, of her love, merits at once the preference over a superficial and pharisaical virtue: lastly, this sinner, whose name was concealed, as if unworthy of being pronounced, and whose only appellation is that of her crimes, is become the glory of Jesus Christ, the praise of grace, and an honour to the Gospel. O matchless power of virtue!
Yes, my brethren, virtue renders us a spectacle, worthy of God, of angels, and of men: it once more exalts a fallen reputation: it renews our claim, even here below, to rights and honours which we had forfeited: it washes our stains, which the malignity of men would wish to be immortal: it rejoins us to the servants of Jesus Christ, and to the society of the just, of whose intercourse we were formerly unworthy: it calls forth in us a thousand laudable qualities, which the vortex of the passions had almost for ever ingulfed: lastly, it attracts more glory to us than our past manners had attached shame and contempt. While Jonah is rebellious to the will of God, he is the curse of heaven, and of the earth; even idolaters are under the necessity of separating him from their society, and of casting him out as a child of infamy and malediction; and the belly of a monster is the only asylum in which he can conceal his reproach and shame. But, touched with contrition, scarcely hath he implored the eternal mercies of the God of his fathers, when he becomes the admiration of the proud Nineveh; when the grandees and the people unite to render him honours till then unheard of; when the prince himself, full of respect for his virtue, descends from the throne, and covers himself with sackcloth and ashes, in obedience to the man of God. Those passions which
