the poor for the good of the suffering soul the food and drink that would have fallen to his share for thirty days if he had been still alive, a praiseworthy custom that is still observed in many religious houses. Now this Edelhard was procurator, and through avarice and excessive parsimony he had frequently omit ted to give the usual alms according to this custom; but how dearly he paid for his neglect! Besides a severe punishment that he underwent from a deceased person whom he had defrauded of this alms, a punishment that caused his premature death, on the thirtieth day after his decease, although many prayers and twice as much alms as usual had been offered for him, he appeared to his abbot in woful plight, and made the following bitter complaint: “Alas! what terrible torments I am suffering! and I cannot obtain full remission until all my brethren, who are detained in purgatory through my neglect, are released; for the prayers and alms that are offered for me are by a decree of divine justice given, not to me, but to them.” Thus writes Trithemius in his Life of Rabanus Maurus, Abbot of Fulda. Thomas Cantipratanus tells us of a soldier who on his death-bed asked his grandson to sell his horse, and have masses said with the money for the repose of his soul. The grandson, partly through neglect and partly because he wished to keep the horse for himself, as it was a fine one, did not fulfil his grandfather’s request. After a lapse of six months the deceased appeared to him; “you faithless fellow,” he said to him with an angry countenance, “on account of your negligence I have had to suffer in purgatory all this time, and now the mercy of God has caused me to find help elsewhere. But as for you, by a just decree you will die soon, and your soul will come to this place of torments, where it will suffer until you have atoned, not only for your own sins, but also for mine, for you will have to complete the punishment that I should have suffered, if God’s mercy had not found means to help me.” This threat was fulfilled to the letter; the grandson died soon after, having made his confession. This should be a lesson to those children and heirs who neglect to carry out the pious wishes of their deceased friends, or for some cause or another defer complying with them. In the same measure will chastisement be measured out to them. “Judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy;”[1] purgatory without mercy to him who has not shown mercy to the poor souls.
- ↑ Judicium enim sine misericordla illi qui non fecit misericordiam.—James ii. 13.
