with, imposed on him as a penance a fast of one or two days. “Oh,” exclaimed the man, “I cannot fast; it makes me giddy!” “Then,” said the priest, “put on a penitential girdle.” “A penitential girdle?” replied the other; “what is that?” “It is a belt made of coarse horse-hair or iron, which is worn on the body next the skin,” answered the priest. “O Father,” said the man, “I am altogether too weak to wear a thing of that kind!” “Well, then, would you like to try a discipline, and flog yourself a few times a week?” “Oh, still worse for a poor old man like me! Please give me a lighter penance.” “Then,” continued the priest, “say the Rosary once a day on your knees.” “But I cannot do that,” was the man’s reply, “because I am not accustomed to kneeling.” “Well, then,” said the confessor, “as none of these penances suit you, all I ask you to do is to stand before the looking-glass every morning when you get up, and every night before going to bed, and there stroke your long beard with your hand for a time.” The old man laughed at the droll penance, but accepted it, as it seemed a light one. When he had contemplated his beard for a few days in the manner prescribed, he remarked how grey his hair was becoming, and that was precisely what the priest wanted. “Oh ho!” thought he, “it is winter time with me already; I am hastening to the grave and it will be soon time for me to go! And what is to become of me after the sinful life I have been leading? And I have done so little good!” This thought at first filled him with dismay, but the grace of God then touched him and he came back to the priest with tears of contrition in his eyes, repeated his confession with many sighs and groans, and said he: “O Father, I can kneel, and fast, and use a penitential girdle, and take the discipline, and I will do so very willingly; there is no penance too hard for my deserts; none that I am not ready to accept, that I may at least begin to prepare for the death which I now see is close at hand for me.” And in future he led such a penitential life that his confessor had to restrain him, instead of urging him on, in the practice of mortification.
No one should trust to his youth or put off repentance.
My dear brethren, I cannot give the same advice to all here, for some of us have no grey hairs to contemplate in the looking-glass. And that is the very thing that serves many as an excuse. Oh, they say, I am not old yet; I am still young, strong, and healthy; I am not in danger of death; there is no hurry for me;
