make use of them as food and come but once in a thousand years and take but a single grain away, so that with the lapse of time there should not remain a single grain, still at the end of that time not the amount of a grain of mustard seed would have been diminished from the duration of eternity.
Beware, therefore, beloved of exposing yourself to eternal torments; call to mind the great risk and danger you are to encounter in the future world: address to your soul serious admonitions, before you come to be ashamed and fall into captivity and chastisement: ask your soul, saying, "O rebellious soul, how much misery thou dost undergo for the sake of gaining the world! What long and distant journeys thou dost undertake, how often dost thou remain hungry and thirsty, notwithstanding thou are both transitory thyself and all thou dost gain is transitory; and yet all this time God himself has engaged to supply all your needs. But on the other hand what hast thou done to secure eternal salvation in the mansions of the future world, to be delivered from misery and reach unchanging felicity? If thou art not able to endure the least pain or toil for religion in this world, how wilt thou be able to bear in the future world both material and spiritual torments, together with the torments of the imagination?"
Every man ought to take as the subject of his thoughts, the things which concern the future state,—the pains of its torments, the joys of its felicity, the delight and ecstasy of the vision of the beauty of the Lord, and finally the fact that these states are eternal. Now, is it not strange folly and sottishness to be proud of the transitory pleasures of the world in a life which lasts but for one or two days, and to turn our backs upon future eternal joys? If you are wise you will acknowledge the frailly and errors of your soul, and with an understanding of the purpose for which it was created, you will meditate upon your soul, and upon
