Thee, my Highest Good, for the miserable pleasures of this world; I repent with my whole heart. Alas! by that grief which slew Thee on the Cross, give me such sorrow for my sins as may cause me to weep during all that remains of my life for the wrongs I have done Thee. My Jesus, my Jesus, pardon me, and I promise never more to offend Thee, and ever to love Thee. I am no longer worthy of Thy love since I have so despised it in the past time, but Thou hast said, " I love them that love Me." (Prov. viii. 17;) I love Thee, do Thou also love me; I will no longer live in Thy disgrace. If Thou wilt love me, I renounce all the pomps and pleasures of the world. Hear me, my Lord, for the love of Jesus Christ. I pray that Thou wouldst not banish me from Thy heart. I consecrate myself to Thee wholly; my life, my inclinations, my senses, my mind, my body, my will, and my liberty. Receive me; do not reject me as I deserve, for having so often rejected Thy friendship. " Cast me not away from Thy presence." (Ps. xxi. 11.)
Second Point.
"The balances of deceit are in his hand." (Hos. xii. 17.) We ought to weigh all goods in the balances of God, not in the deceitful balances of this world. The goods of this world are miserable, they do not content the soul, and they quickly pass away, " My days are swifter than a post; . . . . they are passed away as the swift ships." (Job ix. 25, 26.) The days of our life pass and fly away; of the pleasures of this world, at the end, what remains? "They are passed away as the swift ships." Ships leave, indeed, no sign of where they have passed. " As a ship that passeth through the waves; whereof when it is gone by, the trace cannot be found, nor the path of its keel in the waters." (Wisd. v. 10.) Let us ask of so many wealthy, literati, princes, emperors, who are now in eternity, what find they now of the pomps, pleasures, and grand enjoyments of this earth? All answer, Nothing, nothing! " O man," says S. Augustine, " mark what he had here, and note what he takes away with him." Thou notest, says the saint, only the goods which the great have preserved; but observe what they take with them
