you turn you are caught and devoured. The Prophet Amos has described this miserable state of the soul in the figure of a man, who while running away from a lion is attacked by a bear or bitten by a serpent: “As if a man should flee from the face of a lion, and a bear should meet him: or enter into the house and a serpent should bite him.”[1] Would it be a wonder, my dear brethren, if such a soul should be a hundred times on the point of departing, and should retreat again each time terrified into the body? Is it any wonder that the death sweat pours down in thick drops from the tortured frame? O misery above all miseries!
In all this anguish he finds no comfort. And is there then no help nor comfort for the unhappy man? Alas, no! He is most in need of help; but his misery is that of which the Psalmist says: “For tribulation is very near: for there is none to help me.”[2] Help him, you men and women for whose sake he has so of ten sinned and bartered heaven! But their answer resounds in the heart of the dying man in the terms in which the high-priests answered the despairing Judas: “What is that to us? look thou to it,”[3] we cannot help you. Husband, wife, father, mother, dear children, for whom I have worked so hard, to whom I have left all I had; help me! help me! What is the matter? Can we do anything for you? Shall we arrange the pillow under your head? Ah, no! no! take this load off my conscience! that is the rest I require. But we cannot do that; do you wish to have some strengthening medicine? Ah, I want comfort and strength for my poor soul! We cannot give you that.
Neither from heaven. O ye saints and angels of God, come to his assistance! subvenite sancti; occurrite angeli. But even that prayer is of no use, and the sick man hears the voice that was heard in the temple of Jerusalem before its destruction: “Let us go from here! away from this place!”[4] The time of our office has expired. For thirty, forty, fifty years we have tried to help you in every possible manner, and to bring you with us to heaven; but you would not have our help, and now our time is at an end. We have failed in our efforts, and must go and leave you to the demons. “See ye that I alone am,” says the Lord in the Book of Deuteronomy; that there is nothing to be hoped from creatures; “and there is no other God besides Me: I will kill and I will make to live: I
