throw off that remainder of restraint and modesty which make us still cautious of the eyes of men; they wish to riot in disorder without precaution or care: and then, servants, friends, connexions, the city, and country, all feel the infection of their irregularities and example. Our rank, our elevation, no longer serve but to render more striking and more durable the scandal of our debaucheries; in a thousand places our excesses serve as a model: the view of our manners perhaps strengthens, in secret, consciences whom guilt still rendered uneasy: perhaps they even cite us, and make use of our example, in seducing innocence, and in conquering a still timorous modesty; and, even after our death, the fame of our debaucheries shall stain the history of men, shall perhaps embellish lascivious tales, and, long after our day, in ages yet to come, the remembrance of our crimes shall still be an occasion and a source of guilt.
Lastly, (but I would not dare to enlarge here,) the corruption which habitual guilt sheds through the whole interior of the sinner is so universal that even his body is infected; debauchery leaves the shameful marks of his irregularities on his flesh: the infection of his soul often extends even to a body which he has made subservient to ignominy. He says, in advance, to corruption, like Job, " Thou art my father; and to the worm, thou art my mother and my sister!" The corruption of his body is a shocking picture of that of his soul.
Great God! can I then flatter myself that thou wilt yet cast upon me some looks of compassion! Wilt thou not groan at the sight of that mass of crimes and putrefaction which my soul presents to thine eyes, as thou now groanest in the spirit over the tomb of Lazarus? Ah! avert thine holy eyes from the spectacle of my profound wretchedness; but let me no more turn away from it myself, and let me be enabled to view myself with all that horror which my situation deserves: tear asunder the veil which hides me from myself; my evils shall in part be done away from the moment that I shall be able to see and to know them.
And behold the second circumstance of the deplorable situation of Lazarus; a mournful cloth covers his face: that is the profound blindness which forms the second character of habitual sin.
I confess that every sin is an error which makes us mistake evil for good; it is a false judgment which makes us seek in the creature that ease, grandeur, and independence which we can find in God alone; it is a mist which hides order, truth, and righteousness from our eyes, and, in their place, substitutes vain phantoms. Nevertheless, a first falling off from God does not altogether extinguish our lights; nor is it always productive of total darkness. It is true that the Spirit of God, source of all light, retires, and no longer dwells within us; but some traces of light are still left in the soul: thus, though the sun be already withdrawn from our hemisphere, yet certain rays of his light still tinge the sky, and form, as it were, an imperfect day; it is only in proportion as he sinks that the gloom gains, and the darkness of night at last prevails. In the same man-
