en, but that I have squandered in idleness—that time shall be my greatest torment in everlasting flames!
In vain will he then wish to have the lost time back. O vanished years! where are ye? If I might only call you back now! Ah, unhappy me! I must exclaim with that secretary of Francis I., king of France, as he lay on his death-bed; unhappy me! I have spent so many years, and used up so many reams of paper in the service of my king; would that I had spent but one day and used but one sheet of paper to write thereon a general confession for the good of my poor soul! Would that I had but one hour of the many I have wasted, that I might regain lost time and appease my Judge before I die! But what caps the climax of my grief and sorrow is that I cannot now expect another moment of time! I hear resounding in my ears the words: “Time shall be no longer,”[1] the season for sowing is gone by; not a grain can be planted any more with the hope of a harvest. I am about to journey into eternity, where I have nothing to look for but a tardy repentance, torments, and despair!
What torment this thought causes on one’s deathbed. Shown by examples. In this condition of fear and anguish will depart the soul of the man who has wasted his time during life in idleness or in vanities useless for his salvation. Bromiard writes that a certain holy Father saw once in the house of a dying sinner a swarm of hideous demons coming to the bed-side to carry off the wicked man. He cried out, mercy! mercy! but one of the devils answered him in an audible voice: “It is too late now to beg for mercy.” And so it was. The unhappy man gave up the ghost in that moment. Humbert, a holy priest belonging to a religious order, while meditating on eternity, heard a mournful voice calling out in most piteous tones. He asked who it was, and what was the matter. “I am a soul,” was the answer; “I have just departed, and have been condemned by God; I am sent here by divine command to warn you and others of the great value of the short time of your life. Know then that of all the torments that a man can endure in his last moments, nay, of all the pains and tortures of hell itself, there is none more acute than that which is caused to the dying and the damned by the thought of lost and misspent time. And that shall be the subject of our vain regrets during eternity. Ah, would that God would give us the smallest particle of time, to repent of our sins and atone for the past! But, O despair! time shall be no more!” With this exclamation the unhappy soul vanished.
- ↑ Tempus non erit amplius.—Apoc. x. 6.
