of the lost soul: “for all eternity he will not have what he desires, and yet for all eternity he will have to suffer what he hates.”[1] Who doubts that the lost soul would willingly be happy and be released from hell? On the one hand the clear knowledge of the eternal happiness from which he is excluded, and on the other the actual experience of infinite misery in which he is, must inspire him with the greatest desire of enjoying the one and being delivered from the other. Of eternal happiness I have said on a former occasion that when we mortals enter into eternity our eyes are opened for the first time, and we see clearly what we now behold only darkly by faith and cannot properly appreciate, namely, that the possession of God is our only supreme Good. Then the sinner to his own eternal torment shall be able to say to himself the words of the Prophet Jeremias: “Know thou, and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee to have left the Lord thy God.”[2] With regard to his feeling the unhappy state in which he is, we have only to remember what he has to suffer in that terrible fire, even if there were no other torment in hell, as we have seen in the last meditation. In this fire he is completely immersed and buried; the flames pierce through his eyes and ears; he breathes in fire; his month and nostrils are filled with it; his whole body resembles a glowing iron or coal of fire, and yet it will never be consumed.
But they shall never be able for all eternity. In this unspeakable torment, as we may well believe, he will unceasingly lament, and cry out: ah, would that I were out of this place! But fruitlessly; for he must remain there forever. He will recall the time of his life on earth: O beautiful years that were granted me to gain heaven; will you never return? Beautiful hours that sometimes seemed too long for me, so that I have sought amusement to pass you away; ah, would that I had now even one of you in order to free myself from this intolerable torture! Will yon then never come back to me? Precious moments that I squandered in frivolity! Ah, if you were only offered me now, I should willingly give the whole world, if it were mine, for even one of you! But that happiness can never be mine for all eternity! The angel that St. John saw in the Apocalypse swears to me by the Almighty who created heaven and earth,
