has slain me with its impure desires and love of luxury! And the body will cry out against the soul: this is the wretch that has conceded so much to my sensuality, and not held me in check by its reason, as it should have done; thus it has become the cause of my eternal damnation! And such, too, shall be the exclamations of all those whom you have led into sin by unlawful gestures and signs, by wicked talk, by impure solicitations, and love-letters, by indecency in dress, and bad example: this is the man, O just Judge, who has robbed us of our innocence! He it is who has taught us what we should never have learned! He it is who has led us so far astray that we have offended Thee! Children shall cry out against their father and mother: my parents are the murderers of my soul; they should have brought me up to Thy service, O Judge, but they neglected their duty and taught me nothing but the vanity and sinful customs of the world, or else they allowed me to indulge in them and did not punish me on account of that as they should have done. Such, too, shall be the cries of the weak whom you have oppressed and persecuted, of servants, laborers, and tradesmen whom you have defrauded of their just wages. Your wife shall accuse you of having treated her worse than a servant, and of having spent what belonged to her in drinking and debauchery, so that she had to suffer hunger with her children. All these will cry out in the words of the Apocalypse: “How long, O Lord! (holy and true) dost Thou not judge and revenge our blood?”[1] And this is what the Holy Ghost prophesied long ago by the Wise Man: “Then shall the just stand with great constancy against those that have afflicted them,”[2] and against all by whom they have been in any way persecuted and oppressed during life.
Conclusion and resolution to keep in Our Lord’s friendship. From this we may conclude what sort of a sentence he has to expect on the last day who dies in the state of sin, and whether he has any reason to hope for grace or mercy from the otherwise meek and gentle Son of man. Oh, truly! neither the Judge, who will then be quite changed from what He now is, shall feel the least pity for the sinner, nor shall the latter have the least title to mercy. Therefore, Christians, let us fear, honor, and always love with our whole hearts the Man who will come to judge the living and the dead. Alas! Jesus, my Saviour and Redeemer, if I should be so unfortunate as to leave the world in the state of mortal
