poor what belongs to them of right. Oh, what a life I led then! And, alas! what sort of a life am I now leading? Will not this very sheet of paper written by my own hand rise up against me on the judgment-day and demand my eternal damnation? If there were no devil to accuse me, no witnesses to appear against me, no Judge to condemn me, I must be myself my own devil, witness, and judge, for my conscience will show me this paper, and clearly convince me that I might have led a holy life all this time, since I was able to do it for so long. Such were the sighs of this man, accompanied with bitter tears of repentance. Well for him that he thought of himself in time, and amended his life!
Thus the good life he formerly led shall prove that he might have lived better. My dear brethren, let each one look into his own conscience, for it will be a book full of matter on the last day. There is hardly one of us who cannot remember having served God for some time or other during his life; no one who has not had some experience of the sweet repose of a good conscience; no one who has not tasted the consolation and joy of being free from all guilt and loving God above all things. Perhaps many a one when comparing his present with his past life will, like that gentleman, be compelled to sigh forth with shame: ah, beautiful life! where art thou? How modest and retiring I was then; how vain and haughty I am now! How pious and devout I was then; how tepid and slothful in the divine service now! How chaste and pure then; how cfissolute and unclean now! What shall I say when my conscience gives testimony of me before the tribunal of God? Shall I allege in excuse that my evil inclinations and corrupt nature did not allow me to live in better fashion? Ah, the innocence of my early years shall convict me of a lie, and prove beyond doubt that I might have lived better if I had only chosen to do so.
Nor shall he be able to blame his weakness. Shall I appeal to the weakness and frailty that in the midst of so many dangers and opportunities of evil did not suiter me to offer resistance to temptation? Oh, a countless multitude of witnesses shall be there to put me and all sinners to shame in that case! It seems to me that I hear all the chosen saints of God crying out with one voice in the words of the Prophet Job: “My strength is not the strength of stones, nor is my flesh of brass.”[1] What! Do you think we are made of granite, or of brass, or iron, like the statues you see of us? Our bones and rel-
- ↑ Nec fortitudo lapidum fortitudo mea, nec caro mea ænea est.—Job vi. 12.
