alone; nor on events, because he considers them all as in the order of Providence; nor even on his passions, because the charity which is within him is their rule and measure. The just man alone, then, enjoys a perfect liberty: superior to the world, to himself, to all creatures, to all events, he begins, even in this life, to reign with Jesus Christ; all is below him, while he is himself inferior to God alone.
But the sinner, who seems to live without either rule or restraint, is, however, a vile slave; he is dependent on all, — on his body, on his propensities, on his caprices, on his passions, on his fortune, on his masters, on his friends, on his enemies, on his rivals, on all surrounding creatures; so many gods to which love or fear subject him; so many idols which multiply his slavery, while he thinks himself more free by casting off that obedience which he owes to God alone; he multiplies his masters, by refusing submission to him alone who renders free those who serve him, and who gives to his servants dominion over the world, and over every thing which the world contains.
You often complain, my dear hearer, of the hardships of virtue; you dread a Christian life, as a life of subjection and sorrow: but what in it could you find so gloomy as you experience in debauchery? Ah! if you durst complain of the bitterness and of the tyranny of the passions; if you durst confess the troubles, the disgusts, the frenzies, the anxieties of your soul; if you were candid on the gloomy transactions of your heart, there is no lot but what would appear preferable to your own; but you despise the inquietudes of guilt which you feel; and you exaggerate the hardships of virtue which you have never known. But, in order to hold out to you an assisting hand, let us continue the history of our Gospel, and let us see, in the resurrection of Lazarus, what are the means offered to you, by the goodness of God, of quitting so deplorable a situation.
Reflection II. — The power of God, says the apostle, is not less conspicuous in the conversion of sinners than in raising up the dead; and the same supernatural power which wrought upon Jesus Christ to deliver him from the tomb, ought to operate upon the soul long dead in sin, in order to recall it to the life of grace. I find there only this difference, that the Almighty voice of God meets no resistance from the body which he revives and recalls to life. On the contrary, the soul, dead and corrupted, as I may say, through the long duration of guilt, seems to retain a remainder of strength and motion only to oppose that powerful voice which is heard even in the abyss in which it is plunged, and which resounds for the purpose of restoring it to light and life. Nevertheless, however difficult may be the conversion of a soul of this description, and however rare such examples may be, the Spirit of God, in order to teach us never to despair of divine mercy, when we sincerely wish to quit the ways of iniquity, points out to up at present, in the resurrection of Lazarus, the means of accomplishing it.
