that it may awake me. Fear, O my soul, the face of the Judge, whom the powers of heaven fear, the wrath of the Omnipotent, the face of His fury, the noise of the world that will perish, the fire that will burn it, the voice of the Archangel, and the most rigorous words of the final sentence. Pear the teeth of the dragon, the belly of hell, the roaring of fierce beasts that stand ready to devour, the worm that ever gnaws, the fire that always burns, the smoke, the brimstone, the whirlwind, and the exterior darkness.
Colloquy. — Oh, "who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes," [1] that I may therewith prevent the eternal lamentation, the gnashing of teeth, the binding of hands and feet, the weight of the fiery chains that oppress, that gripe, that burn, and that never consume.
5. With these tears of fear I must dispose myself to pass on to those of love. For (as St Augustine [2] says) " fear must be like the needle that enters through the cloth, not to remain within itself, but to make the thread enter, wherewith to join the parts that are disjoined." So fear must serve to make charity enter, and to join together the affection of the soul, employing them in loving Almighty God and bewailing the offence that it has done Him.
POINT III.
Of confession. — 1. In order to the second act, which is confession, pre-supposing the examination and averring of sins in that manner that has been described in the third point of the 30th meditation, the first purpose must be to confess them all entirely, how ignominious soever they be, vanquishing the shame that may disturb me with those considerations that were set down in the end of the last meditation,
