the just is carried by his angel, that he may there satisfy his whole debt to " the last farthing." [1]
1. Upon this truth of our faith, I will ponder first how just God our Lord is, and how great is the righteousness of His justice, though it be mixed with mercy. For He will leave no sin without some chastisement; and therefore in the sacrament of penance, when he pardons mortal sin He changes the eternal into some temporal punishment, demonstrating in that His infinite mercy, and His justice; His mercy in pardoning the most terrible pain that was perpetually to continue, and His justice in requiring satisfaction with another lighter pain that continues but a while. With this consideration I will animate myself to conform myself to His justice, seeing His mercy so abundant towards me, to change millions of years in a most terrible fire into a very few of voluntary penance; so that all I am able to suffer in this life is to seem little or nothing to me in comparison of what I have deserved, and Almighty God has pardoned me.
2. Secondly, I will ponder how this temporal pain, if it be not paid in this life with some very deep contrition, or with some penal works, it must of necessity be paid in the other, as well for observing the order of the divine justice, as also because Almighty God is so great a lover of purity that He will admit nothing into heaven but what is very well purged, not only from sin, but from the pains which are its consequences, for the " glorious church," says Saint Paul, "must neither have spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," [2] and therefore I must labour for such purity in this life that I may have nothing to purge in the other.
Colloquy. — O Lamb of God, in whose blood the just wash and make " white " their souls to be admitted into Thy kingdom, grant me by the virtue of
