of honor on that day, such as you now pretend to be before the world? What! the Judge will exclaim, “what meaneth then this bleating of the flocks which soundeth in my ears?” what mean those lamentations of the poor, of widows, orphans, laborers, servants, innocent people? Justice, O God! they cry out; here is the wretch who wronged us and cheated us out of our property! He it is who in the time of extreme necessity lent us money and corn, and demanded an exorbitant interest from us! He it is who in that suit, in which we should not have failed to obtain our rights, forced us to accept a compromise by which we were defrauded wholly or in part of what belonged to us! This is the miser who wronged us by not paying the wages due to us for our hard work, or by delaying to pay us, or by unjustly lessening the salary agreed on, so that we had to suffer the pangs of hunger! This is the merciless husband who treated me, his wife, as if I were a servant-maid or a dog, so that I was almost reduced to despair and spent my life in continual sorrow and affliction! This is that inhuman father who brought us, his children, to the extremity of poverty by his constant gambling and drinking, and by the idle, worthless life he led! This is the unprincipled wretch who by all sorts of tricks, lies, and bribes, deprived us of our employment and of our good name, that he might do a service to others! This is the avaricious man at whose door we have so often knocked in vain to ask for a piece of bread! O just Judge, pronounce sentence! Nor shall there be individuals only to bring forward such charges; whole cities, provinces, and countries shall cry out for vengeance; this, O Lord, is he who by his brutish vices put the rod in Thy hands to chas tise us, and forced Thee to afflict us with unfruitful seasons, contagious maladies, wars, and famines! Most just Judge, pronounce sentence!
And still more by those whom he led into evil.
And if the Judge shall hear the complaints of those whom you have injured only in their worldly substance, in transitory things, how much more loudly will not resound in His ears the cries for vengeance of those whom you have injured in their immortal souls, in eternal goods? What bitter complaints shall then be made against you by those to whom you have given occasion of sin by impure solicitations, love-letters, unchaste songs, and conversations? by the children whom you have taught to swear and curse, and to indulge in vanity? by the servants whom you have kept in your house for unlawful purposes? by the innocent
