conversion which thou deferrest to a future period, what shall they avail thee? And those grand resolutions which thou promisest to thyself to put in execution one day, what shall they change in thine eternal misery, should death anticipate them, as it every day doth in a thousand instances, and leave thee only the unavailing regret of having vainly formed them?
But, even granting that death shall not take you unawares, and I ask you, upon what foundation do you promise yourself, that age shall change your heart, and incline you more than you are at present to a new life? Did age change the heart of Solomon? Ah! it was then that his passions rose to the highest, and that his shameful frailty no longer knew any bounds. Did age prepare Saul for his conversion? Ah! it was then that, to his past errors, he added superstition, impiety, hardness of heart, and despair. Perhaps in advancing in age, you shall leave off certain loose manners, because the disgust alone which follows them shall have withdrawn you from them; but you will not thereby be converted: you will no longer live in debachery; but you will not repent, you will not do penance, your heart will not be changed; you will still be worldly, ambitious, voluptuous, and sensual: you will live tranquil in that state, because you will no longer have but all the dispositions of these vices without giving yourself up to their excesses. Years, examples, long habit of the world, shall have served only to harden your conscience, to substitute indolence and a worldly wisdom in the room of the passions, and to efface that sense of religion which, in the youthful period of life, is left in the soul as yet fearful and timorous; you will die impenitent.
And if you suppose this to be merely a movement of zeal, and not a truth founded on experience, examine what passes every day before you; view all the souls who have grown old in the world, and who, through age alone, have withdrawn from its pleasures. The love of the world is extinguished only with them under different exteriors, and which are changed solely through decency: you see the same relish for the world, the same inclinations, the same ardour for pleasures, a youthful heart in a changed and worn out body. The delights of our younger years are recalled with satisfaction; the imagination dwells upon, and delights in reviving all that time and age have wrested from us; a blooming youth, and all its attendant amusements, are regarded with envy; all of them are entered into, which can be thought in any degree compatible with the sedateness proper to advanced age; pretexts are formed for still mingling in certain pleasures with decency, and without being exposed to the public ridicule. Lastly, in proportion as the world flies from, and deserts us, it is pursued with more relish than ever: the long habit of it hath served only to render it more necessary to us, and to render us incapable of doing without it; and age hath never as yet been the cause of conversion.
But, even admitting that this misfortune were not to be dreaded, the Lord, is he not the God of all times, and of all ages? Is there a single one of our days which belongs not to him, and which he
