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20
The Consideration of Our Last End.

find themselves in hell. words, my dear brethren. “Of his eternity.” What does that mean? Are there, then, more eternities than one? Truly there are, and each one will find his own, either in indescribable joys or in intolerable torments, according as he himself has prepared his eternity during this life. Sinner! where go thou in your sins? Your wickedness seems to answer me, as the boy answered those who asked him where he was going on a horse that was running through the streets with him without a bridle; “I am going,” said the boy, “wherever the brute wishes to bring me.”[1] In the same way you, O wicked Christian! say: I am going wherever my inordinate appetites and brutish desires wish to bring me; I am going where my pride, avarice, sensuality, vindictiveness, glut tony and my outward senses are dragging me; wherever the fashions and usages of the world lead me; I go into that street, that house, that company, to that infamous person to satisfy my lusts; I go to that gaming and drinking house to get drunk; I go to seek revenge on that man who has wronged me; I go to cheat and deceive others, etc. I go, in a word, wherever my brutish inclinations bring me. Ah, go then! I quite understand that you are on that broad road of which Our Lord has said: “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat.”[2] But, unhappy man, where will this journey end? In eternity. You do not think of that now. And in what kind of an eternity? In that which you will find at the end of the way you are going, of which Job says: “If I wait, hell is my house, and I have made my bed in darkness. All that I have shall go down into the deepest pit.”[3] Alas! hell is my dwelling-place! eternal darkness my couch! hunger my food! the gall of dragons my drink! my only company the demons! my only delight eternal fire! See, now, where you are going to; in that house of your unhappy eternity you will have to remain forever. Blind soul! will you not even now reflect on this?

Conclusion often to remember our last end, that it may be well with us in eternity. My dear brethren, surely we do not wish to have a home of that kind! Do we no hope and expect to find a far better one? If such is the case, let us often seriously ask ourselves the question: where am I going? My body will go to the grave. If so, what better shall I be for all that the vain world

  1. Quocunque belluæ collibitum fuerit.
  2. Lata porta, et spatiosa via est, quæ ducit ad perditionem, et multi sunt qui intrant per eam.—Matt. vii. 13.
  3. Si sustinuero infernus domus mea est, et in tenebris stravi lectulum meum. In profundissimum infernum descendent omnia mea.—Job xvii. 18. 16.