place of the worship of the holy God; and, scarcely emerged from so afflicting a situation, they are in need of nothing, for they have the holy books in their hands. And, in an extremity so new, surrounded on all hands by nations of enemies, having no longer, in the midst of their army, either the ark of Israel or the holy tabernacle; their tears still flowing for the recent death of the invincible Judas, who was alike the safeguard of the people and the terror of the uncircumcised; having seen their wives and children murdered before their eyes; they themselves on the point every day of sinking under the treachery of their false brethren or the ambuscades of their enemies; — the book of the law is alone sufficient to comfort and to defend them; and they think themselves in a situation to disclaim that assistance which an ancient treaty and alliance entitled them to demand.
I am not surprised, after this, that, in the consolation of the Scriptures, the first disciples of the Gospel should forget all the rage of persecution; and that, unable to bring themselves to lose sight of that divine book during life, they should desire it to be inclosed in their tomb after death, as if to guarantee to their ashes that immortality it had always promised to them; and likewise, as it would appear, to present it to Jesus Christ on the day of revelation, as the sacred claim by which they were entitled to heavenly riches, and to all the promises made to the righteous.
Such are the consolations of believing souls upon the earth. How terrible, then, my brethren, to live far from God under the tyranny of sin: always at war with one^s self; destitute of every real joy of the heart; without relish often for pleasures alike as for virtue; odious to men through the meanness of our passions; insupportable to ourselves through the capriciousness of our desires; hated of God through the horrors of our conscience; deprived of the comforts of the sacrament, seeing our crimes permit us not to approach it: deprived of all consolation from the holy books, seeing we find in them only threatenings and anathemas; without the resource of prayer, seeing the practice of it is forbidden, or at least the habit of it lost by a life wholly dissolute. What then is the sinner but the outcast of heaven and of the earth!
Thus, know ye, my brethren, what shall be the regrets of the reprobate on that great day, when to each one shall be rendered according to his works? You probably think that they will regret their past felicity, and shall say, " Our days of prosperity have slipped away like a shadow, and that world, in which we had spent so many sweet moments, is now no more: the duration of our pleasures has been like that of a dream: our happiness is flown, but, alas! our punishments are to begin." You are mistaken; this will not be their language. Hear how they speak in the Book of Wisdom, and such, as we are ussured by the Spirit of God, they shall one day speak: " We never tasted pure delight in guilt; we have erred from the ways of truth, and the Sun of righteousness hath never risen upon us: alas! and yet that was only the beginning of our misfortunes and sufferings; we wearied
