my Saviour, Who didst die to save me. Behold me at Thy feet; I confess that I have been guilty of hell each time that I have offended Thee by committing deadly sin. I do not deserve pardon, but Thou hast died to pardon me. Therefore, my Jesus, do Thou quickly pardon me before Thou dost come to judge me. For then I could no longer beg for mercy; but now I can beg for it, and hope to receive it. Then will Thy wounds affright me; but now they give me confidence. My dear Redeemer, I repent more than for any other evil, that of having offended Thy infinite Goodness. I would wish to accept every chastisement, every loss, rather than lose Thy grace. I love Thee with all my heart. Have mercy upon me. " Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness."
Second Point.
We will consider the accusation and the examination. " The judgment was set, and the books were opened." (Dan. vii. 10.) Those books will be two the Gospel, and the conscience. In the Gospel, it will be read what the guilty ought to have done; in the conscience, what he has done. In the scales of Divine justice, riches will not weigh, nor dignity, nor nobility, but works alone. " Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting," (Dan. v. 27,) said Daniel to King Belshazzar. On which F. Alvarez comments thus, " Neither God nor riches were put in the balance; the king alone, was weighed."
Then will come the accusers. The first of these will be the devil. S. Augustine here observes, " The devil will stand before the tribunal of Christ, and he will recite the words of our profession. He will cast in our teeth all things that we have done, in what day, and at what hour, we have sinned." " He will recite the words of our profession." " That is to say, he will bring forward all our vows which we have failed in performing; and he will charge us with all our sins, telling us of the day and the hour in which we committed them. Then he will say to the Judge, as S. Cyprian tells us, " I, for these things, have endured neither blows nor scourgings; I, for this guilty one, have suffered nothing; but he left Thee, Who once died to save him, to
