her whole family, and advised her ever to remember, amid the sufferings of this life, the end of our existence, which is the salvation of our soul.
CHAPTER IX.
The Pains of Purgatory, their Nature, their Rigour — Doctrine of Theologians — Bellarmine — St. Francis of Sales — Fear and Confidence.
There is in Purgatory, as in Hell, a double pain — the pain of loss and the pain of sense.
The pain of loss consists in being deprived for a time of the sight of God, who is the Supreme Good, the beatific end for which our souls are made, as our eyes are for the light. It is a moral thirst which torments the soul. The pain of sense, or sensible suffering, is the same as that which we experience in our flesh. Its nature is not defined by faith, but it is the common opinion of the Doctors that it consists in fire and other species of suffering. The fire of Purgatory, say the Fathers, is that of Hell, of which the rich glutton speaks, Quia crucior in hac flamma, " I suffer," he says, "cruelly in these flames." (See Note 2.)
As regards the severity of these pains, since they are inflicted by Infinite Justice, they are proportioned to the nature, gravity, and number of sins committed. Each one receives according to his works, each one must acquit himself of the debts with which he sees himself charged before God. Now these debts differ greatly in quality. Some, which have accumulated during a long life, have reached the ten thousand talents of the Gospel, that is to say, millions and tens of millions; whilst others are reduced to a few farthings, the trifling remainder of that which has not been expiated on earth. It follows from this that the
