Because they preferred worthless things. And why was I so foolish? Why have I refused eternal happiness? Why have I chosen hell us my portion? For the sake of a handful of earthly wealth, which I preferred to the sovereign Good! For the sake of a hrutal lust, which ended almost as soon as it had begun! For the sake of a point of honor, on which I was unwilling to yield! For the sake of some vanity, that I did not wish to renounce to please God, thus gradually depriving myself of His grace and favor! For the sake of a wretched habit of swearing and cursing, that I have not tried to overcome! For the bake of the sins of others, that I have not hindered when I could and should have done so! For the sake of my children, whom I brought up badly and to whom I allowed too much liberty! That is all I have gained by the loss of my eternal happiness! That is all for which I am now burning in the everlasting fire of hell! All this took place many hundred years ago, and lam still lying in this lake of fire. O accursed person! would that I had never laid eyes on her! Accursed pleasure! would that I had never known it! Accursed avarice and pride, would that you had been strangers to me! Ah, if I had only been wise when the time for me to will was there; but now it is impossible for me and shall be so forever! O thought! O memory! O painful recollection! into what depths of despair you drive me! I would wish to be happy, but can never realize my wish for all eternity! Let us, dear Christians, briefly consider these thoughts of the reprobate in the
Second Part.
This very thought fills them with despair; for they would now.
Nothing is more apt to make us despair than to be always willing, and never to have the power of carrying out our wishes. Consider the state of two persons who are enamoured of each other, who would willingly be always in each other’s company, but are kept apart by their parents. What torments of longing they suffer night and day; how they sigh and moan and give expression to fruitless desires, knowing all the time that they have not the slightest hope of seeing their wish gratified! What then must be the unspeakable torment of the damned soul in hell who is filled with desire for all eternity, and for all eternity can never attain the object of his desire nor have the slightest hope of attaining it? This is what St. Bernard says: “What more miserable than always to wish for what you can never have, and always to hate what will be always with you?” And such is the state
