all friendship and relationship, all love and sympathy shall lose their names and be changed into bitter anger and hatred, especially if one of the formerly beloved persons was the occasion of sin to the other. Accursed wife, the husband will cry out in rage and hatred, must I have you always at my side to increase my torments? Would that I had never seen you, for then I should not perhaps be here; for your sake I often forgot my duty to God and my own conscience; to save you trouble or to retain your affection I have often done what I knew to be unlawful; to maintain you in idleness, frivolity, wasting your time paying and receiving visits, gambling, and amusing yourself, extravagance in dress, I have had recourse to unlawful means to make money, and have been obliged to withhold from Jesus Christ, in the persons of the poor and needy, what belonged to Him by right. Accursed wife, another will cry out, your obstinacy and disobedience, your spirit of contradiction, your bad temper, your fondness for company, your freedom of manner with others whom you cared for more than for me, have been the occasion of the many sins that I committed against my marriage vows; and now you have brought me into this place of torments! And you, accursed husband, the wife will exclaim, you are the cause of my eternal damnation because you allowed me too much liberty, or encouraged me to lead a vain, unchristian life; for your sake I have neglected many acts of devotion, many a confession and Communion, lost many a sermon, and indulged our children in all kinds of vanities and pleasures; the drunken and debauched habits that led you so often into leaving me alone at home with the children, the cruelty with which you acted towards me as if I were your servant or your dog, drove me to sadness and despair, and to many sins that sprang therefrom, and finally into this abyss of hell!
Parents and children.
Accursed son, a father will say, it is on your account that I am damned, for I often sacrificed my conscience in my anxiety to provide for your future; frequently had I made the resolution of restoring ill-gotten goods to their lawful owners, as I was bound to do by the divine law, but my inordinate love for you deterred me each time; I was so desirous of leaving you something at my death that I kept what I had no right to, and am now in hell. Accursed father, the son will reply, you rather are the cause of my ruin; if you had kept me under better restraint, and led me in my youth to fear God, and kept me away
