man, no creature whatever could possibly know anything of except myself, namely, of the inward sinful thoughts of my heart. My own conscience shall be a witness against me: “Their conscience bearing witness to them,” says St. Paul, “and their thoughts between themselves accusing, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men.”[1] This is the book of which the Catholic Church sings in the Mass of the dead. The book shall be produced in which all is written from which the world shall be judged.[2] “The book spoken of,” says St. Augustine, “is a certain divine force and intelligence which shall cause every one to recall to mind and remember with a wonderful quickness all his works, whether they are good or evil.”[3] This is that truthful and infallible book that shall be opened before the eyes of all men, and cry out in a loud voice: “Did not I see thee?” Did I not behold everything you have thought, said, or done, and see when, how, and where you did it? Have I not always experienced a pang of anguish whenever you acted contrary to the will of God and His commandments? From this conscience, says St. Bernard, all your sins shall spring forward like dogs let loose from the leash, and they shall seize you by the throat and cry out upon you as their author.[4] Terrible it is to read what the Sacred Scriptures say of Sennacherib; after his whole army had been destroyed by the angel, he returned in shame and confusion, “and his sons that came out of his bowels slew him with the sword.”[5] Wicked Christian! what sort of children have you brought into the world during your life? Do you not know them? Come without first having done penance into the valley of Josaphat, when the angel’s trumpet shall call you thither, and then you shall see how they will rage and storm against you. The children of your head, your proud thoughts in which you extolled yourself and lowered others; the children of your heart, those wicked thoughts and unlawful desires, that hatred and vindictiveness; the children of your eyes, those unchaste looks; the children of your tongue, that hateful, abomin-
- ↑ Testimonium reddente illis conscientia ipsorum, et inter se invicem, cogitationibus accusantibus, in die, cum judicabit Deus occulta hominum.—Rom. ii. 15, 16.
- ↑ Liber scriptus proferetur, in quo totum continetur, unde mundus judicetur.
- ↑ Liber, qui apertus dicitur, quædam vis est et intelligentia divina, qua flet ut cuique opera sua, vel bona, vel mala, cuncta in memoriam revocentur, et mentis intuitu mira celeritate cernantur.
- ↑ Tunc quasi loquentia simul ejus opera respondebunt, et dicent: tu nos fecisti, opera tua sumus.
- ↑ Filii, qui egressi fuerant de utero ejus, interfecerunt eum gladlo.—II. Paral. xxxii. 21.
