pel tells us, was taken up into Abraham's bosom, but Dives was buried in hell. Then the rich man's soul cried from hell: "Father Abraham, send Lazarus to give me one drop of water to quench my burning thirst." But God answered him: " No, for between you and him there lies an infinite abyss separating you forever." O Dives, lost soul, you who enjoyed all the favors the world could give, do they profit thee nothing now? Nothing. All thy riches, honors, and pleasures, do they profit thee nothing now? Nothing. O Lazarus, blest soul, whence comes thy present happiness? Because I held the world at its true value — because I knew that the one thing I had to gain in heaven was my God, and the most precious thing I had on earth was my own soul.
But let me turn my eyes from earthly things to my own soul and ask, what is its value? Were my father a great man in the eyes of the world I would participate in his greatness, for he gave me being and I bear his likeness. Now, God is a being of infinite greatness and you, my soul, are His son, made to His image and likeness. You are, therefore, in a way, infinitely precious. Each person of the Trinity has vied with the other in showering on my soul His choicest gifts. The Father gave it an independent existence; the Son, an intellect to know the loftiest truth; and the Holy Ghost, a will to love and desire an infinite good. David, speaking of the soul's creation, cries out: "A little less, O Lord, a little less than the angels hast Thou made her." The soul, like the angels, is a pure spirit, and one particle of a
