the sin was committed? How many years has not the good God borne with me while I was in the state of sin, although He might have hurled me into this pit of hell after the first sin I was guilty of? How lovingly has He not knocked at the door of my heart, and exhorted me as a father to return to His friendship by true repentance? These were all sure signs that God did not wish to condemn me, but to make me eternally happy. Nay, this very fire of hell in which I am now burning, that He so often threatened me with if I provoked His anger, this fire of which I have so often read in books to my great terror, and heard in sermons, this is an infallible proof that God wished to have me in heaven. If I had but considered this as I now know it, I should not ever feel this fire. No, my God! I may not and cannot lay the blame of my damnation on Thee; it is not Thy fault that I am not in heaven. These words of Thine are ever in my ears: “How often would I have gathered together thy children!” and I acknowledge the truth of that oft-repeated assertion of Thine: “How often would I have gathered together thy children…and thou wouldst not.”[1] Yes! I might have done it, as far as Thou art concerned! Why then have I not done it?
They were fully provided with the means of salvation. Have I perhaps failed to find the right way to heaven? Perhaps I was not provided with the means necessary to get there? Ah, no! What was said to the young man in the gospel held good for me, too. “But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.”[2] Why have I not kept the commandments? Have I perhaps been ignorant of them? Have they not often been explained to me in the Christian Doctrine and in sermons? and if I was ignorant of anything regarding them, was it not my own fault, since I could and should have known all about them? Can I say that they were too difficult for me to observe? But I should be contradicted by all the elect in heaven, who entered there before my death, amongst whom there are many who were weak and subject to evil inclinations as I was, people of every condition, age, sex, and nation, who have all been obliged to walk the same way of the divine commandments, for there is no other way of arriving at happiness. They were able to do that; why was not I? What a multitude of pious Christians lived with me, who daily gave me the benefit of their good ex-
