and strangers; follow me into the immortal ways of my glory and felicity, as you have followed me in those of my humiliation and sufferings. Your toils have endured but for an instant; the happiness you go to enjoy shall be without end."
Then, turning to the left hand, vengeance and fury in his eyes, here and there casting the most dreadful looks, like avenging thunderbolts, on that crowd of guilty; with a voice, says a prophet, which shall burst upon the bowels of the abyss to swallow them up, he shall say, not as upon the cross, * Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," but, " Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. You were the chosen of the earth, you are the accursed of my Father; your pleasures have been fleeting and transitory, your anguish shall be eternal." The just, then, mounting with the Son of Man, shall begin to sing this heavenly song, Thou art rich in mercy, Lord, and thou hast crowned thy gifts in recompensing our good actions. Then shall the impious curse the Author of their being and the fatal day which brought them forth; or, rather, they shall enter into wrath against themselves, as the authors of their misery and destruction. The abyss shall open; the heavens shall bow down; the reprobate, says the Gospel, shall go into everlasting punishment, and the just into life eternal. Behold a lot which shall change no more.
After a relation so awful, and so proper to make an impression on the most hardened hearts, I cannot conclude, without addressing to you the same words which Moses formerly addressed to the Israelites after having laid before them the dreadful threatenings, and the soothing promises, contained in the Book of the Law: " Children of Israel, behold I set before you this day a blessing and a curse: a blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day; and a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside, out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods which ye have not known."
Behold, my brethren, what I say to you in concluding a subject so terrible. It now belongs to you to choose and to declare yourselves: the right hand and the left are before you, the promises and the threatenings, the blessings and the curses. Your destiny turns on this awful alternative: you either shall be on the side of Satan and his angels, or you shall be chosen with Jesus Christ and his saints. Here there is no middle way; I have pointed out the path which leads us to life, and that which leads to perdition. In which of these two do you now walk? And on which side do you believe that you should find yourselves, were you, at this moment, to appear before the awful tribunal? We die as we have lived: tremble lest your destiny of this day be your everlasting destiny. Quit, and from this moment, the ways of the sinful; begin now to live like the just, if you wish, on that last day, to be placed at the right hand, and to mount, along with them, into the abode of a blessed immortality.
