therefore, hath eye seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man, to conceive the full extent of the malice of one mortal sin.
Brethren, let us read the history of sin from the beginning, and judge of its nature from its awful effects. What have been the effects of sin in heaven? We go back in spirit to the time prior to this earth's creation, when naught existed but God and His angels. We see in paradise those millions and billions of angelic spirits, second to God alone in the beauty of their natures, reflecting in their glorious attributes the perfections of the Divinity, basking in the full splendor of the beatific vision, and inconceivably happy in the possession of the All-Good. Ah ! we see them as in a vision, and we seem to hear their heavenly voices chanting: " Sanctus, Sanctus," and intoning: " Glory to God in the highest " — but alas! even as we gaze, the voices, like an interrupted chorus, suddenly cease, and as when a thunder-cloud crosses the face of the sun, so the heavenly vision disappears. What has happened? Mortal sin hath entered heaven and blasted the glory thereof. Lucifer and his followers have given for an instant to their own splendor the homage due to God alone, and immediately glorious angels become loathsome devils. God smites His own fair creation, and like a thunderbolt Satan and his rebel comrades fall into the everlasting fire God's justice has prepared for them. Behold the first mortal sin; see its effect. For one mortal sin that lasted but a moment, one sin of thought without previous example or warning, for one such sin
