And behold the third resource, which shall fail, to the confusion of the criminal soul; for, should no friends be found on this earth to interest themselves in our misfortunes, there are always, at least, indifferent persons whom our faults "do not wound or excite against us: but, on that terrible day, we shall have no indifferent spectators. The just, so feeling on this earth to the calamities of their brethren, so ingenious in excusing their faults, and so ready in covering them with the veil of charity, in order, at least, to soften, if they cannot find an apparent excuse for them in the eyes of men, — the just, then despoiled, like the Son of Man, of that indulgence and pity which they had exercised toward their brethren on the earth, shall hiss at the sinner, says the prophet, — shall insult him, and shall demand his punishment from the Lord to avenge his glory; they shall enter into the zeal and interests of his justice; and becoming judges themselves, they shall mock him, says the prophet, and say, " Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness. Behold, now, that foolish man, who believed himself the only sage on the earth, and who considered the life of the just as a folly; who made to himself in the favour of the great, in the vanity of titles and dignities, in the extent of his lands and possessions, in the good opinion and applause of men, supports of dirt, which were to perish with him. Where now are your gods, your rock in whom you trusted? Let them rise up and help you, and be your protection!"
Nor shall sinners be more indulgent to his misery; they will feel for him all that horror which they shall be forced to feel for themselves; the fellowship of misfortune, which ought to unite, will be only an eternal hatred which shall divide them; only a cruel inveteracy which shall fill their hearts with nothing but sentiments of cruelty and fury against their brethren; and they will hate in others the same crimes from which all their miseries spring. In a word, the men most distant from us, the most savage nations, to whom the name of Jesus Christ hath never been announced, come then, but too late, to the knowledge of the truth, shall rise up against you, and reproach to you, that, if the miracles which God had in vain operated amongst you had been wrought before their eyes, — that if they, like you, had been enlightened by the Gospel, and sustained by the succours of faith, they would have done penance in sackcloth and ashes, and put to advantage, for their salvation, those favours which you have abused for your destruction.
Such shall be the confusion of the reprobate soul. Accursed before God, he will find himself at the same time the outcast of heaven and of earth, the shame and curse of all creatures: even the inanimate, which he had forced to be subservient to his passions, and which groaned, says St. Paul, in the expectation of deliverance from that shameful servitude, shall, in their way, rise up against him. The sun, of which he had abused the light, shall be darkened, as if it were not to shine on his crimes: the stars shall disappear,
