but the worldly soul, who lives without either vice or virtue, how shall he dare to appear.
You, after all, say, my dear hearer, that your conscience does not reproach you with great crimes; that, if not good, neither are you bad, and that your only sin is indolence and sloth. Ah! you shall then know yourself before the tribunal of Jesus Christ. You shall see whether the testimony of your conscience, which reproached you not with crimes, and left you scarcely any thing culpable to confess, were not a terrible blindness, up to which the justice of God had always delivered you. From the dread in which you shall see the just, you shall find what ought to be your own fears, and whether the confidence in which you have always lived sprung from the peace of a good conscience, or from the false security of a worldly one.
O rny God! cries St. Augustine, could I but see at this moment the state of my soul as thou shalt lay it open to me! Could I despoil myself of those prejudices which blind me, mistrust those examples which confirm me, those customs which quiet me, those talents which dazzle me, those praises which seduce me, that rank and those titles which deceive me, and those complaisances of a sacred guide, which form all my security: could I but despoil myself of that self-love which is the source of all my errors, and behold myself alone at thy feet, in thy light; O my God! what horror would I not feel for myself! and what measures would I not take in humbling myself before thee, to prevent the public shame of that awful day, when the counsels of hearts and the secrecy of thoughts, shall be manifested! For, my brethren, not only shall the sinner be shown to himself, but he shall likewise be shown to all creatures.
Part II. — That mixture of good and wicked, inevitable on this earth, gives birth to two disorders: in the first place, through favour of that mixture, concealed vice escapes that public ignominy which is its due: virtue, not known, receives not the applause it merits. In the second place, the sinner, high in honours, frequently fills the most distinguished offices, while the good and pious man lives in humiliation, and crawls like a slave at his feet. Now, on that terrible day, a double manifestation shall be made, which will repair that twofold disorder: in the first place, the sinful will be marked out from the just by the public exposition of their conscience; in the second place, they will be discerned by a separation from them, and the difference of their stations before the throne of glory.
In order fully to comprehend all the shame and confusion with which the criminal soul shall then be covered, when shown to all creatures, and all his vices, the most secret, exposed to the light, it requires only to pay attention, first, to the number and character of the spectators who shall witness his shame; secondly, to the care he had taken to conceal his weaknesses and debaucheries from the eyes of men, while on the earth; thirdly, and lastly, to his personal qualities, which will render his confusion still more deep and overwhelming.
