from the eyes of men; nay, if I could give you but one moment of that time; what would you do? Ah, you would free yourselves from an unhappy eternity by true repentance, and gain a joyful eternity in heaven! But, unhappy souls, in vain would you expect that much! You must go on in your despair! There is not an hour, or a quarter of an hour, or a minute, or a moment for you! Your tears and sorrow are too late. During your lives you could thereby have freed yourselves from everlasting misery; now time is no more for you! O bitter despair! (which I have dilated on on another occasion, my dear brethren, when I wished you a good time.)
Hence it will be a source of great torment to a dying man to think of what he has lost through idleness when he might have gained great profit for his soul. Now you may understand how great will be the mental anguish and pain that will pierce the heart of the dying man who has passed a lifetime in useless occupations or idleness, doing nothing for his soul: and what his feelings will be when he looks back on the years he has wasted. Alas! what pain of heart will be his! I have lived twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, or more years; in each year there were twelve months, in each month four weeks, in each week seven days, in each day twenty-four hours, in each hour sixty minutes, in each minute as many moments. All this beautiful time is over. In any moment of it I could have gained eternal glory in heaven! Ah, would that I had abstained from sin! Would that I had always kept in the grace of God! Would that I had been more regular in frequenting the sacraments, in making use of the golden opportunities afforded me, in performing works of piety, charity, and mercy! Would that I had always occupied myself in something useful according to the Christian law, that I had directed my daily duties and trials by the supernatural intention to my last end, to God and heaven! What a rich treasure of merit and eternal joys I should have amassed, that the just Judge would give me now! But alas! it is too late, and I have lost all forever! Poor and naked I must go into the house of my eternity, while others, amongst whom I might have been, enter it with joy and exultation, as the Lord says of them by His prophet David: “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Going they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves.”[1] And I must look on with empty hands and tearful eyes!
- ↑ Qui seminant in lachrymis, in exultatione metent. Euntes ibant et fiebant, mittentes semina sua. Venientes autem venient cum exultatione, portantes manipulos suos.—Ps. cxxv. 5, 6, 7.
