art my only love, my life, my treasure, my all. O Mary, my protectress, pray for me, that I may continue faithful to God until the end of my life.
Meditation Thirty-fifth.
On the soul's being presented before the tribunal of God.
I. WHEN criminals are presented before their judges, though they fear and tremble, yet flatter themselves that either their crimes will not be proved against them, or that their judges will remit m part the punishments which they have deserved. O God! how great will be the terror of a guilty soul when presented before Jesus Christ, from whom nothing will be hidden, and who will judge her with the utmost severity! I am the judge and the witness, Jer. xxix. 23., will he then say to her: I am thy judge and I am witness of all the offences thou hast committed against me. O my Jesus, I deserved to hear this from thy mouth, had the hour of my judgment arrived. But now thou art pleased to assure me, that if I will repent of my sins, thou wilt no longer remember them: I will not remember all his iniquities. Ez. xviii. 22.
II. It is the opinion of divines, that in the same place in which the soul is separated from the body, she will be judged, and her lot decided either for eternal life or eternal death. But should the soul unhappily depart from the body" in sin, what shall she be able to say when Jesus Christ shall remind her of his abused mercies, of the years he granted her, of the calls by which he invited her, and of the many other means which he afforded her of securing her salvation? Jesus my Redeemer, thou who condemnest obstinate sinners, dost not con-
