This page needs to be proofread.

expect to be ours? O God grant it be that of the saint, but is there one point of resemblance between our lives and hers? O God forbid it should be that of the sinner, but are we not men of the world, careless Catholics, relapsing sinners like him? If he were freed from hell and sent back to live life over again, what a great saint he would become! That grace denied to him, God grants to us to-night. We are plodding through life as though never to die. Men are dying all round us, but we look on unmoved. Our hearts, like muffled drums, are beating our funeral march to the grave. The sun will rise some morning soon, and streaming into our chamber, reveal our bodies cold and stiff and dead. The world will go about its business as usual and we will be laid away and forgotten. These hands of mine will wither; the flesh will fall from my face; my jaws, as though in grim humor over the folly of my life, will assume that horrible death's-head grin, and my whole body of which I am now so careful will become one fetid mass of corruption and decay. And my soul; where will it be? Ah, as a man lives so shall he die. The fate of my soul after death depends on the tenor of my life. Every moment of life should be a preparation for death, for on the issue of my death depends the complete success or failure of my life. St. Aloysius one day at play was asked: " What would you do were you told you would die within the hour? " and he replied: " I would continue my recreation." Doing all for the glory of God, even his recreation was a preparation for death. Seminarists prepare for death